Conox Central Wednesday at StanRicho Satyar Shah here in the Kintec Studio Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of 5 star Google reviews, sore feet. What are you waiting for? Another edition of Conox Central. We actually have some news to get to, which we will in the open, but I do want to address something before we get to all of that. So welcome back, number one. Thank you. I spent a day on the IR yesterday and short-term IR, very, very short-term IR, didn't even have to hit the seven-day I.L., but I go to listen to what you and Bic talked about on the show yesterday in my absence, and the first thing I'm levelled with is, oh yeah, he probably took the day off to just watch the Canada game. That was Bic, by the way. Flame Bic, you know, you listen, you heard, he said it. I mean, I will lie to you, the happenstance of me coming down with a sore throat yesterday did fall in line with me ending up spending a lot of time on the couch watching soccer all day. Yeah. You can be sick on worst days. Yes. There are worst days to feel under the weather. So you are correct. Like I did just sit at home and watch the Canada game. You know, a fact only. Yeah. It's, you know, but Canada won their first, you know, significant international tournament match. And Bic and I were debating whether winning the Gold Cup qualifies, and yeah, that's big, but it's not quite the same level attorney as the couple of Americans. I mean, they had to be Columbia in the final. It's pretty, no, it's pretty, pretty big. Yeah. I just, I can't believe it took you guys like less than three seconds to throw shade at me to start yesterday's show. Like I said, I'm blaming Bic. He came in guns of blazing, you know, it's all good. It's all good. I take it. You know, I understand that's part of the game, but we're back now and we got some real Canucks shoes to get to, so it is the open. The open where we bring you the latest on the Vancouver Canucks and our take on it. They have resigned Teddy Blooger to a two year, $3.6 million total value contract. So that is 1.8 million on the average annual value, a slight haircut from where he was this past season with the Vancouver Canucks. So as the saying goes, a very good bit of tidy business done here by the Canucks Front Office to lock in Blooger for two more years. Yeah. I always kind of earmarked 2 million for him. I always thought the highest range would be 2.5 and I was using the David Kampf comparison. That's a four year term as well. Yeah. And that was always the highest end and that seemed unlikely. It would get there, but I always thought 2 million. So to get him at 1.8 for two years with the cap going up as well. So like you didn't even build in an inflationary raise here for Teddy Blooger. He's taken a pay cut. So if he, let's say builds on what he showed last year and becomes a bonafide third line center, that's incredible value. Even if he doesn't, that's still something you feel comfortable paying for somebody who plays a third/fourth line center role and can play for you in a lot of different situations. And having him plus suitor now at 1.6 million plus you have Niels Oelmann as that like, you know, fifth center now on top of that gives the team at least some credible center depth at a very affordable rate heading into free agency. And I think the other part of this and the Friedman contract that was handed out last week as well has kind of put the connects into position where I'm not saying you want to start next season and have free men and jewels sitting on your third pair, right? But like for instance, if you add guys like well, Landon and Breezebaw to like the Canucks have enough defense men if they had to play a preseason game tomorrow that they can play a preseason game tomorrow. Yeah. And I think a lot of teams want to go into free agency having those things figured out at least to some extent where you don't go go into it saying, man, like, we literally have to sign four guys today, if we don't, we're going to be looking at holes in our roster in about a month or two and you get really worried about that. It takes a little bit of pressure off about spots you have to fill. And I think that puts the Canucks in a position where the focus is truly going to be now on some higher end pieces. They filled out the edges of their rosters. They took care of business internally with Patterson during the season. Now would Philip Ronik. Now it's about finding those complimentary bigger pieces. And that's going to be the biggest part of this free agency period going into to Monday. And what I will say, you know, my biggest takeaway here, like blue girl, it's, it's blatantly obvious he's wanting to stay in Vancouver, loved his time here. And that is evidenced by him signing this deal. You know, when David comp, that that's the, the, the, the contract that maybe some people were worried about Teddy blue girl signing four years, two and a half million per. When David comp signed that contract with the Maple Leafs last summer, he was coming off a seven goal, 20 assists season, 27 points with the Leafs and Brad tree living in one of his first moves as GM of Maple Leafs signed David comp to a four year extension at 2.5 million per season. Teddy blue girl. Yeah, only six goals, but had 22 assists, 28 points and 68 games. Big penalty killer, fourth line minutes, third line minutes did a lot of the work that helped this team raise their floor and eventually go on to win a Pacific division title. And you get him at a pay cut from where he was this past year. It kind of, to me, it sends a message to the remaining unrestricted free agents that the Canucks have. If you want to stay here, you kind of have to play ball a little bit and give us a bit of a team friendly discount because we're trying to build something special. Yeah. And you saw you heard, you read the quotes from Jim Rutherford with Ian McIntyre last week. And he essentially said like, Hey, we've, we've made our offers here. Yeah. And the player is whether they want to be here or not, and you're seeing that play out. And you know, we heard earlier before, right as free agency began that the Canucks were going to be ruthless. We mentioned it on the show that, Hey, the Canucks this offseason are not going to be sentimental about keeping all their guys. They'd love to keep them, but it has to be on their terms and we're seeing that play out now. And blue girl, somebody, when we broke down all the players on Monday that were remaining, blue is a guy that we had like, keep an eye on him before free agency because we knows a door up door has enclosed Joshua and I know Dolly wall spoke about it today. We mentioned on Monday he's probably too rich of Vancouver's blood right now. They would have to move salary and good luck with that to have a conversation about him. Not a player. I mean, no disrespect to Dakota Joshua, but like honestly, not a player I'm ready to give four or five years of term for and also have to move out money in order to make it work. And I think that's what the challenge is under Kota Joshua. So door of the door hasn't closed, but blue girl was the guy that kind of watched before free agency because the number would be manageable and when you look at the center position in the free agent market, if you weren't going to keep Linda home, easily the best fourth line center available. Yeah. And he's a guy who can play on your third line. I don't think you want to head into next season in the playoffs with him being your sure fire third line center unless he takes a step. And if he does, you know, you'll have to leave that possibility open, right? If he does, great. If not, that's probably not what you want to do, but you can play through most of next season with him alongside Garland and feel fine, right? And I think having that at 1.8 million takes a lot of pressure off this team in terms of having to address that center position. Because you're right. I mean, if you don't sign him and you're not bringing Lindholm back, you're either stuck bringing in somebody like Sam Carrick and not only having him in to fight for a spot, I don't mind him coming in and fighting for the 13 forward spot or anything. But if you bring him in to be your third or fourth line center, that's trouble. And do you want to pay Wenburg? Do you want to pay Monahan? Not really. So I'd rather just do Blue Girl at 1.8. And that's what the Canucks have done. Blue Girl is going to speak to media. We'll play some of those clips as the show goes on a little bit later today. I want to get into the salary cap ramifications, what it leaves open for the Canucks. But you know, we mentioned Joshua there. There was a report from Dolly Wall saying, looks like it's going to be too rich. The door remains open. I love the non-update updates on Zadorov, basically every single day now, where it's like, nah, the door is not closed. It screams, this player wants to remain in Vancouver and it's been this way for so long. Yeah. And there's just this ongoing battle to seemingly from Zadorov's camp, at least how I'm reading the tea leaves, to try and get the Canucks to come up from whatever number it is that they've offered to Nikita Zadorov. Yeah. And I think if the Canucks come up from the number, it seems like even slightly, it's just like, okay, let's sign. That's what it seems like. And it may not be the case, right? Maybe maybe the like what we keep hearing though that the Gulf is in huge. Yes. You know, I've heard that others have heard that like the Gulf isn't huge and we're not talking about a big number like hypothetically speaking, let's say that the gap to me would be something along these lines, let's say Zadorov wants 5 million over six years and the Canucks might be at 4.75 over six, hypothetically. So it's like, you're not talking about a big gap and if the Canucks say go up a little bit to 4.8 or 4.9, does that get it done? Probably. But the Canucks also want to save every 100k they can. Yes. So the question is, do the Canucks have to go up at all? Is he going to bend at the end or do you have to go up nominally? Even if it's 100k, right? Something along those lines, that's what I wonder about and that's why this might drag out until, you know, close to July 1st, but it seems, you know, not only seems, we've heard Nielsen say it, Zadorov wants to stay here. And the Canucks are trying to use that leverage as much as they can. It feels like that in this, in negotiation. And I know what people are going to say at the Dunbar Lumber Tax Message inbox. Well, in that scenario, it's like, what's another 250k a year? You meet them in the middle and just, just get it done. Zadorov means that much. Well, I understand, and also from Zadorov's perspective, it's not just about leaving the money on the table, but over six years, that amounts to $6 million in total in that sort of a scenario. 100%. But the one thing that is starting to crystallize here, as we see more and more contracts gates signed, we saw Damello yesterday. If you're not bringing Zadorov back, fine, but you got to spend on somebody unless you want to live in the cheap, unless you want to be in the bargain bin when you're looking at cheap players, which is not what the Canucks are looking to do. If you're looking to find legitimate for five defensemen, it's going to cost you four to five million. Yeah. That's just the reality of what it's going to cost you to do to do business in this free agent market. So with that being the case, who do you want to spend that on? If it's not Zadorov, it's somebody else. And I think that's a reality the Canucks also are probably grappling with here too. Maybe you don't have to give that other player the term that you're going to have to commit to Nikita Zadorov. Yes. But he's also 29. Yeah. Who are these guys we talk about? Like, for instance, we talk about a Brendan Dillon mid 30s, talking to other guys a couple years older, like Joel Edmondson's 30 years old, or 31 years old, we're talking about guys that are a couple years older and not even as good, I don't think, right? So I think that's where it gets interesting with Zadorov, it's, yeah, you don't want to overspend on it. If you want to Zadorov caliber player, and not even the caliber that we project fans, that fans say, like top paring, when they think he's a second paring guy, like I say even a four or five defenseman, like it's, it's going to be hard to find a player better than him. That's not going to cost you more. It's, it is interesting how this is all playing out. I mean, the free agent D market on the left side, you pointed this out very early in our off season conversations, there's just not a lot of options for left shot D this year. It is at least as of right now, there are more options on the right side, which never happens in unrestricted free agency, but that's the situation Canucks find themselves in this year. How that plays out over the next few days, we'll see. So with your calculations on the salary cap, they signed Teddy Blooger 1.8. You add that in. What are the Canucks looking at now? What do they have to play with to potentially go after the Jake Gensels and everybody else that's coming available on Monday? So if you include she loves at 950 K and the in this includes she loves and demos. You have your two goalies. You have five defense, including Friedman and Juleson and you have 11 forwards, including DJs at the in Oman down your route roster, plus put goals in so 11, five and two. And you have 16.75 million dollars to spend, which means you need to sign two more defense men. Yeah. One, that's like as a door off type, like somebody would four to five million range, probably you're looking at and somebody else, maybe in the two to three in the two to three million dollar range. I think that's what you're looking at. I think you're looking at about seven to seven to eight million, seven to seven and a half million on two defense men. Yeah. And it leads you to about nine million on three forwards on two forwards. Sorry. Now, you can also also stretch that and make it 10 million on three forwards by demoting somebody. Yeah. So for all intents and purposes, and you can go 10% over the cap in the oxygen, right? Yeah. You can always go. And this includes for those wondering includes Pullman on LTAR. Yeah. Yeah. It's all accounting for all of that. So it gives them about nine million to sign on to sign two forwards. You could stretch that to 10 on three. So that's interesting because it kind of shows how they would be, I guess, really dangling the line in order to sign a Jake Genssel type at nine million plus. Now, you could, you know, let's say it brings the door up in a 4.75, right? And you sign a defense for two million, a cheaper one because you want to go down the cheaper route, right? Well, then all of a sudden, then that gives you about 10 million, 11 million on three players. Now you have a bit of breathing room, but still you're still talking about 11 on three, you're not even filling out your roster. Yeah. So that's where I think the connects are in on Genssel, but I just don't know how they can make it work if the number is 10 million, right? So it would have to kind of, I think the number for Genssel for it to work in Vancouver, doing the math would be around nine, nine million. And is that going to be enough to get it done? And that's where you hear the want to move out certain salaries in order to be able to potentially be a bigger player for Jake Genssel, who Eric Talski spoke to Pierre Lebron, said they're still working very hard on trying to bridge the gap with with Jake Genssel. There's been reports. I mean, we talked about it right after the Pierre-Luc de Bois trade, how Genssel could be on the radar for the LA Kings. I know listening with my sore throat on the couch yesterday to Elliot Friedman, I couldn't help but snicker at that we've reached the mystery teams are in on Jake Genssel stage of his free agency campaign. Well, you know what? Like, you know what? What that shows is that there is a robust market and that agent is making sure he's putting in work. Ben Hankinson's putting in work. He is. He's making sure that Jake Genssel is going to get the biggest contract humanly possible. Yeah. I can't guess and doesn't have quite the same client list as some of the other big agencies have. He obviously has good ones. He has best three, he has other really good hockey players. Blue girl, of course, too, and other really good players, too. But this is a huge deal for him. Yeah. You know, it's a homerun with Jake Genssel. It's huge. And again, I'm not saying he's doing anything wrong. I'm just saying like he's doing a really good job in ensuring that teams understand that if they want to get Genssel, the number is going to have to be big. And if they don't want to play in that ballpark, they better go home. Yeah. And through every, every play in the playbook to try and maximize his player's value on the open market. And I've said this a few times, but it's just, it's not all that often a player of Genssel's caliber hits free agency. Okay. He is a top 10 player at his position. That's pretty obvious when you look at the numbers. Guys like that tend to not hit free agency. See in their mid 30s, like March or so and Stan Coase might do on Monday and even them, their teams are still to this 11th hour almost trying to sign those players. Sam Reinhardt, if he were to make it to free agency, which I think is very unlikely after scoring the game winning goal in the Stanley Cup game seven for the Florida Panthers, you know, yeah, he could hit 10, 11 million dollars, but these types of players doesn't happen often. And that's why you're seeing, you know, the agent go through basically every play in the playbook to try and maximize Jake Genssel's market. There was a bit, bit of news today too, as we get to the Canucks central roundup that and something we heard Elliot Friedman mention a little while ago, Jeff Skinner could be added to the winger market as he's likely or is going to get bought out by the Buffalo Sabres. So when I look at a step, when I look stylistically, I just don't see the fit with the team. He is, I mean, he's an offensive winger that doesn't forecheck much and but he scores and he's had concussion issues like when he was younger, he was actually super aggressive and he still can't be at times, but he's had so many concussion issues like he doesn't put his nose in into those areas as much as he did in the past, which understandably so like he might be a concussion away from not playing again. He had a lot of issues for a while early in his career. So I can understand why that changed a little bit to some extent. But the consistency in his game too, I don't think fits with what the head coach wants. I don't see it being a great fit stylistically. At the same time, he would be a really good option if you're not getting against all your power play. I think you play that bumper spot left hand shot and I think he's good enough on that spot to help you. I just don't know if he's going to be consistent enough for you to bank on him being PD's winger. So I kind of, yeah, I don't think you can play him as well. I mean, you could, but I don't know how it's going to work with Elias Patterson. I think he's at that stage of his career where he's kind of a offensive player that can play in your bottom six, help lengthen the scoring through your lineup, maybe play a power play role for you. And that's where he gets his minutes and maybe he's soft teams playing with Besser and Miller, and similar to I guess how Terra Sanco filled in for the Florida Panthers as a deadline acquisition, how Phil Kessel played for, you know, contending teams later on in his career. I think Skinner's maybe better than that most recent example of Phil Kessel, but that's kind of what I look at a guy who can still score 20, but you just can't count on him to play a big two way role for you with where he's at in his career. And I think that's sort of one of the issues that is maybe why I'm not so keen on him showing up in, in Vancouver. But, you know, that's a name that gets added to the free agent pool. We're still wondering if stamco's Reinhardt, Marcheso are going to get there. I think all three of them still likely resign with their own teams. But it's not a very deep wing market. And that's why, like we've talked about this so often, you miss on Genssel. Well, where's your next option? Is it Jake Dubrosk? Is it? Yeah. Sean Monahan, like what is your next option? And that's the scary part for the Vancouver Canucks as far as how are we going to do this business and free agency if we're unable to land a Jake Genssel? And I mean, they are going to sign up some players. The thing is, is it going to be something inspiring? If it's not Genssel, like a Tofoli type, that at least people will get excited about, even a March or so, people will be very excited about, even though some would have some questions about them. I'm not sure where the Canucks are in terms of viewing. We know that they like Tofoli. I don't know where they are on Marcheso, for instance. And then it's like, you're coming away looking at players like Arvidson, who might be a good fit too, but again, not the biggest player. And then you get to guys like, do Haim, yeah, who plays down your line up? Then it was like, hey, maybe, maybe you take a flyer on Victor Olafsson, a guy who scored a bunch of goals in the past. Or again, you bring out, you look at guys like Zuckard, look at guys like JVR, you know, Anthony Manta, which to me is not inspiring. If we get to that stage, like, I'm not inspired. You know, like, if that's, if your best player is a player of that caliber, it has to be like, to me, like the bottom line has to be like a Tofoli, Arvidson type. Anything below that is, it doesn't really move the needle for me in terms of finding somebody to play with Patterson. What about Tara Vynan, Jake DeBrusque, Tyler Bertuzzi, I'm like shaking my head as you say these names. I mean, Tara Vynan, I like the left shots that, you know, scored in the range of 20 goals last year. Yeah, but Tara Vynan doesn't shoot the puck enough, right? Like, and I'm not even sure the bumpers are his best spot. And I don't see him being a great fit with Patterson. Yeah. So like, I like the player, it's, you also have to understand, and I'm not saying to you, just me, like, in terms of, we have to look at things as fits. Like, how is this player going to fit not only the playing style, but also the players you want to play in with, and what roles can they occupy on special teams? Yeah. And I think the connection at a point now where their needs are very specific. And you heard, Alvin mentioned that too, after the trade deadline, that they have very specific needs by what they're after. It was somebody in your top six, but somebody that can do specific things in your top six. And what they're looking for down your lineup is very specific. So when you look for specific things, the market becomes even smaller. And that's why, like, if you want to get some real needle movers, it's difficult to do that. If you're not, if you're signing players like a Victor Oliveson, even, you know, and I'm not saying they're going to, and I'm just using that as a name in terms of somebody who scored a bunch of goals in the past, that's probably going to be had for very cheap this offseason. And the other issue for the Canucks, well, like, okay, well, those are the free agent options. There's not a ton of great fits there for the Canucks. Well, what about trade? And then you get into the, well, what trade assets do the Canucks have to find a big name player in trade as part of the other discussion. And I'm not doing this as the grim reaper, because I think they're going to figure some stuff out. Like, I think they're going to make good moves and they're going to have a team that's going to be very competitive next season. Like, I truly believe that they're going to pull off some good moves. But you can see how it's not, you know, it's not an easy task to significantly increase the ceiling of your team. You can fill out your roster. There's no, they can sign guys. There's no question about that. They can get players in. But in terms of finding a real needle move needle moving player, there might be like five or six guys on a list that they have to choose from. And there's a lot of competition for those five or six guys. It's Dan Rachel, Satyar Shah, it is Canucks Central coming up. Shane Malloy is going to join us draft on Friday. And Shane is one of the best covering it hockey prospect radio on Sirius XM. Shane Malloy joins us next on Canucks Central.
