The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 196: Blast From The Past

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Dan Murphy joins the show to discuss the Canucks continued rebuild (1:20), their offseason shopping spree (6:11), and how to best handle the Sedins being in the final year of their respective deals (13:24). We also chat about Canucks teams from the past (22:43), trying to balance objective reporting with personal relationships behind the scenes (26:45), Marc Crawford and The West Coast Express (30:42), the 2011 run to the Cup Final (37:30), the best John Tortorella stories (43:44), and how to teach the TV audience about analytics in hockey (46:46). Sponsoring today’s show is DraftKings, the leader in daily fantasy sports. To try your hand at it and play for free with your first deposit, just use the promo code PDO when you sign up. The podcast is now available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. If you're a fan of the show and you'd like to take a second to leave a glowing rating and review for it, that's cool too. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theas, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl Defensive Inn, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and, of course, the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast.

My name is Dmitri Filipovovic. and sitting across from me is my good buddy, Dan Murphy. Dan, what's going on, man? That's just great to be back on the program. Yeah, I haven't, I feel like last year I didn't have you on. I had you on the first year of the PDO cast, I remember, and we talked about Tortorella and everything that had gone wrong that season, and we haven't had a chance.

I mean, we've been on TV together, and we've done our naked guy, naked eye versus nerdy guy. Sorry, you're not, you're not naked. Naked Ivers nerdy guy show articles on Sportsnet, but this is the first podcast we've done. Yeah, and the column, those are, you know, kind of reunited after some time. Drats came in, took over, and now you're back in your rifle spot.

It was a little bit of a hiatus, but hopefully we'll get to do some more of those this year. We should. They're pretty fun. So we are recording this on a Friday morning. I think we're probably going to run it on Monday because I don't think anyone's going to be listening to a podcast on Friday night. So hopefully nothing too crazy happens at the Canucks home opener on Saturday that we wind up looking silly about.

But we're going to talk a little bit about, we're going to do a bit of a Canucks season preview, and then we'll talk about just other random stuff, whatever. Wherever our discussion takes us, we'll go from there. Okay. So, I was putting together some notes before we started the show on key storylines for the Canucks in 2017-18. And there's, it's a lot of the same stuff we've been talking about for the past couple years. So I feel like at this point, fans might be kind of just worn out by, you know, the discussion of, can Vancouver handle a rebuild?

will the fans tune out and stuff like that. But that still feels like it's probably the most kind of pertinent storyline to this Canucks team right now. Yeah. And, you know, I think they are rebuilding. You know, last, last off-season, I hope they are. Last off-season, I mean, the Erickson signing was ridiculous. I mean, I think everybody saw that, you know, at that point in the Canucks curve was just the wrong thing to do. And I think they were still, that was year three for Willie, and they had made the playoffs once,

missed, and I think they were still hoping that the team was more year one than year two under Willie, but everybody knew it wasn't. So that signing, it bothered me. This past summer, even though they're, you know, busiest team in free agency, the signings didn't bother me as much. Gagne, three years, okay, maybe too much term. But the other guy, short term, you can trade them if you want for picks. If things go down the drain, like most people think, it will for this team. So I thought that the offseason was good in that sense. I know people are probably upset that it doesn't leave room for more young players on the roster, and we can talk about that in a bit. But I thought this offseason far more resembled the offseason of a rebuilding team

than last off season, mainly because of the signing of Erickson. Right. So with rebuilding teams like this, one of the kind of interesting things that always comes up is, You know, you sort of have these dueling things going on where, like, generally the head coach is incentivized to win as many games as possible because if he doesn't, he'll probably lose his job. Yeah. And I think we saw a little bit of that with Willie last year, especially towards the start of the season where, you know, they were really slowing it down and mucking it up and trying to squeeze out as many, you know, two, one overtime with wins as they could. Yeah. And I understand everyone coach is rejected, but obviously if you're rebuilding, you want to, you know, you're probably going to, you're probably going to. lose a lot of games, but you want to give those young guys experience and give him a chance

to grow and see what you have in them. And so do you think that the fact that they brought in a new coach now and Travis Green, who work with some of these guys in the HL, like, is he going to have the sort of creative freedom and the job stability to actually play this thing out properly? Or do you think maybe it'll be like that for a couple weeks and months and then all of a sudden he'll go back to he's on the hot seat because they're one of the worst teams in the league? Well, I don't think he'll be on. You got four-year deal. So I don't think he's going to be on the hot seat in year one or year two. I think the question is,

what's his ideology of developing young players? Because fans, obviously, would love Goldobin to start the season in Vancouver. Bess or for Tannen to be in the opening night lineup, and I think one of those two will be out, we'll know by the time this thing runs on Monday. Right.

You know, even you levy, why not just have them here developing at the NHL level? I don't think that's what Green wants. I think probably you saw them sign these veterans in the Austin because I think they want the young guys to develop properly. If a guy is ready to play some minutes at the NHL level, great. But losing with the kids, some people say, if you're going to lose, why not lose with the kids?

Right. But losing with the kids, I don't think is great for the kids. Right. And I think you only have to look to Edmonton between Pronger and McDavid to see that. Yeah. They hand the, obviously, Hall, fantastic player, New Jersey Hopkins, good player, Eberley, good player, Yakupov, who knows. But they had all these young, really good players, high draft picks, hand them the Keys of the Kingdom, got good contracts. And I never say that they like to losing.

But if you get used to losing time and time and time and time again, that's going to weigh. on your psyche in some way or form. So I think you have to be careful what position you put kids in, especially, I mean, like, Vanek, I mean, he could lose every game. It's going to bother him at this point of his career as much in terms of his development. You don't care, right? Sam Gagne, he's been through it, I mean, in Edmonton, right?

There's another player. So I think you have to be careful in that sense, not just to, you know, throw them in there and let them just get beat up daily and lose on a bad team. you know, before they're ready. And I think that's probably one thing that Travis Green is looking at. Right. So we wrote about this in the aforementioned Naked Ivers, nerdy guy, call them during the summer, but I guess we can rehash that topic a little bit here. Like, what were your thoughts on the summer the Canucks did have? Because, you know, as you mentioned,

they were probably the most busy team in the league. And if you look at all of those transactions just in a vacuum by themselves, they all pretty much check out or make sense. I mean, it seems like, you know, they didn't invest too much in any of those guys other than maybe the extra year on Gagne, but that may be the price you have to pay to bring them here. So all those guys look like, you know, you can put them in a bigger role here than they might have gotten out somewhere else. They can produce and potentially you trade them for draft picks or young players or something down the road and sort of recoup assets that way.

So I see that perspective of it. But I think some Canucks fans might be a little bit gun shy because it, you know, we've gone through this where they've been sort of fighting the full rebuild and they've been trying to kind of patchwork in and put a band-aid fix as opposed to fully just blowing it up. And it seems like I can see why people would be a bit worried about them going down that road again rather than just acknowledging what they are and fully investing in it. Yeah, but I think that, I mean, I think that last year they did it pretty much perfectly. Right.

Right. They kind of were competitive thanks a lot of nights to Ryan Miller. Stating games didn't get shell shock too much. And then the last, what, 12 straight to end it to finish second last overall. only to get screwed by the lottery. So I think last year they kind of did the right way. I think this year they can set up to do it that way as again. Because the players in the locker room, they want to win.

They're not wired to tank. But when you see things in January and February, that it's not, I just hope that the management knows when to pull the plug on a season and you do that early enough to make it worth your while. So I think you kind of can a little bit straddle, fence, but when it's time to jump off the fence, you got to pull that plug right away. And then, you know, I'm with the numbers guys on the draft lottery. I know they've gotten screwed by it two years in a row.

Right. But it's like poker. You give yourself the best chance at the highest pick. You have to do that. Right? Especially on a year like this where there's such a prize. Well, there's two up top. Yeah, two now, right?

So I think they're in a good position to do that again to, you know, the only thing that could screw them is if somehow they're more competitive than we thought. I don't think that's going to happen. Right. I think perhaps the team is a little bit deeper. Yeah. I think maybe the special teams can be a little bit better. I think the goal tending is a little bit worse.

So that might all equal out again in this very tough division. Right, yeah. When you were saying, there was a cart going on behind us. The perils of doing this in that room you're not used to. No, no worries. We'll power through it. Yeah, the thing is, is like, when you mentioned, you know, management pulling the plug and acknowledging when it's time to admit defeat, fortunately, I guess maybe is just looking at this roster, maybe that decision might be out of their own hands because I think there's only so much you can do with the talent that's assembled here right now. So I guess that could be a silver lining where even if they want to win, there's only so much winning they can actually do right now.

No question, especially when you see Edmonton. Calgary should be good. No. I mean, Anaheim, I think, is still very good. you know, the older guys are getting to the end, but their young guys are very good. No, you're going to be able to compete, you'd think, with Vegas, with Colorado, right?

I mean, there's going to be, but I think you're exactly right. The team is, it's just not good enough, right? I mean, I think we all see the deficiencies. It doesn't have a first line. I mean, you'd love for Horvatt and Berci and Bessor to be a good first line, but realistically, on a very, good team, you know, Bo Horvats is a second line center. Right.

Right. I mean, his numbers and maybe he grows. So I just think that this year can play out a lot like last season in that when the time comes, maybe you sell off some of these assets, maybe Bramri Straff goes, maybe Vanek goes for whatever. And then you bring up some young guys for the end of the season and you kind of lose. lose out and then you finish near the bottom and you hope that the lottery doesn't mangle you like it has two years in a row. Yeah.

So do you disagree or disagree with the statement? Jim Benning is getting better on the job? I think that I would, yeah, I would say that I agree with the statement he's getting better on the job, but I think only because now there's clear direction. Right. Right. And I think that for a couple of years there and through his fault and probably through ownership's fault, they thought they could turn it around quickly, only realized that was impossible.

And now that there seems to be clear direction, maybe starting at last season's trade deadline with the Hanson and Burroughs departures, that there's a direction that they want to take this thing. So I think that ever since the deadline, things have looked a whole lot better if we're talking about a rebuild. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, when you're in a position that the Canucks are in right now, as the GM, it gives you sort of the luxury of maybe getting a little creative or, you know, throwing stuff at the wall

and seeing what sticks. And we saw a great example of that with the Derek Pooleyaw trade where why not? Let's see, you know, he was a former high pick, highly regarded prospect. You know, clearly wore out as welcome a bit in Pittsburgh. But why not see if there's anything there? And they didn't really have to give up a premium to take that type of calculator risk. So I think people would like to see more moves like that. And as you mentioned, the trade deadline with the trades, that was something that they really messed up on in the trade deadline prior kind of just keeping all those veterans as opposed to cashing in those tickets. And so I think more stuff like that would probably curry some favor in this market with a fan base.

And you're going to see that I think the big test then will be Chris Tanov this year. Because you know Travis Green wants Chris Tanov on his team. It's his best defenseman. But I also think we know that there's probably zero chance that Chris Tanov is an unrestricted free agent is going to resign in Vancouver. So I think you have to take all those things into account and hope. I think that's the biggest test for this management group this season is when it's time to pull the plug.

Yep. What do you get for Chris Tannup? Or let's make sure that Chris Tannup is one of the guys on the way out, something they didn't do or failed to do with Dan Hamm here's a couple of seasons ago. So, I mean, obviously this depends on what the offers were and what the market forum was like, but do you think that they should have made that decision this past summer? Possibly, but I think it's, I guess you have to wait and see what the market is.

I've heard rumors that they were open to it depending on the player to get back, if it was kind of like a New John Hopkins type of deal. So I think that's something that will definitely explore. You'd be silly not to. But, I mean, I think what they do with TANF will be, you know, that's going to be part of the answer to is Jim Benny getting better at his job, if that's a guy that they do move because I think I think you have to. So before you said Tana's name, when you said the big test coming up for him, I thought you were going to say this.

Well, but I think the one good thing about the Siddins is they're realists too. Right. And when everybody says we are going to fully reevaluate after the season, I truly believe that. I also think that if this team was further along on its development, it might be easier to resign the twins for one-year deals, whatever money, not big money, to be your third liners. But the team, I don't think, is going to be in that position yet. So can you afford to bring them back as your second liners in that same money?

I mean, you hear all the poll questions. You know, what's the biggest question mark with the Canucks? And the Siddhens ran away with it. I don't think that's a question mark. I think we know what's going to happen with the twins. I think you'd love for them to have 50-point seasons. Right. But the last couple of years, you know, they're taking steps back.

Yeah. They're probably going to get surpassed in terms of even strength ice time by the Horvett line. I think that probably, you know, if they end up in the 40-point range, I think that's what we expect. It's not a question. They're not going to all of a sudden

get 70 points again this year. Yeah. No, I'm definitely not. I think those days are long gone to this point. So I think, I guess it all depends and it could be like next summer,

the twins are kind of this summer's Gagne and, you know, Vannick, right? It might be okay. We need one more year. Well, because our Dallin and Goldobin and Pedersen aren't ready yet. Right. We need one more year to let these kids flourish in the minors before they come up and make an impact at the NHL level.

That might be the case. Right. I'm not sure. But I don't think the twins are going to hold the Canucks for hostage to get another job for money. I think they'd like to play, but they'll also know that if they can't play anymore. Right. Do you think that trading them during the season is just off the table? I don't think that's going to happen.

Yeah, I think. Especially since the Canucks now can't even retain salary because they've retained a few deals. So it's going to be tough to fit those guys on anyone's cab. And I don't think the twins are interested in chasing a cup. You know, I mean, it's worked for some. I mean, they probably, though, looked at a guy like Jerome McGinla and the way his career ended. Yeah. You know?

So I just think that when they wrote the Players Tribune an article, obviously it was to try to get the question out of everybody's mouth. until near the end of the season. Let's not talk about it. Maybe it comes up again at the deadline. But I don't think they want the same situation with them that happened to Sundin, where fans kind of sour on them because they're not willing to at the end. Where they're saying now, we don't want to.

And if this has to be it, then this is it. Yeah. Well, this has been my stance all along, but I understand that, you know, especially as a numbers guy, there's no place for sentimentality in this business. Of course. But there is a part of me that, you know, would like to see play it out here and not be wearing some weird different uniform and, you know, looking like shells of themselves. Like, like all those, you know, there's countless examples of former grades who spent the first 15 years of their career with one team and then all of a sudden started chasing that cup. And it just, it just like, it just doesn't sit right with me.

Yeah, I think there's, but I agree with you that in a vacuum numbers should all be all that matter really when you're making decisions with a team. team, but sometimes that just can't be the case. Like, you know, season ago would you be trying to acquire, you know, Evander Cain seriously? Like, there are other factors. Right. With things that you can't always just look at the numbers. Now, if you could fetch something for the twins and you went to them and said, listen, we have this offer, this playoff team wants to bring you guys in for the third line,

maybe you can approach them and see what happens, but I don't think that's going to come out in the public. Yeah. And listen, I mean, while they're, you know, not going to be the players they once were, I still think it's fair to say that they're probably like the main reason people would come to the rink to watch the Canucks still, even in 2017-18, which is probably like an indictment of the team more than anything. But, you know, in these rare occasions, you still see the flashes of that cycle down low and some of that greatness. And you're like, that was fun. I like that.

But I think that for the last couple of seasons, it's the first time, like, we've kind of asked ourselves before it was kind of like plug and play. Whatever person you play with the twins are going to be fine. Yep. Right. And I'm not disrespecting Alex Burroughs, who was tremendous with him and found a way to maximize his spot on that line. But the last couple seasons now, you need to find a line mate that's going to help the twins. Yeah. In terms of maximize what they can do. And I think for me, it's Granlin because he kind of reminds you what Hansen did.

I don't know about that, the Vanek pairing there. No, no. That might be the slowest line in NHL history. Unless you don't plan ever on starting them in the neutral zone and the defensive zone. Yeah. Right? Only after offensive zone of baseball. Exactly.

So I just, I think it's interesting right now. I think that probably Travis Green's more worried about having a shutdown line, right? And that's why maybe he's got Granlin with Sutter at this point. But I hope that Granlan finds his way back out there because I think that's the kind of player that twins need. Someone on the line to go north and south. Someone's a puck hog. Someone who can turn pucks over.

And so to me, I think at this stage in their career, that's the kind of player they need. Are there any other big 2017-18 Canucks storylines that we haven't hit on yet? Goaltending. I mean, I kind of mention it. I'm worried. I mean, I think that Markstrom's a good story with what, you know, being hyped is the best goaltending prospect in a long time. Right.

Never making it in Florida. Coming to Vancouver, sent back down, passing through waivers, kind of refining his game a little bit with Cluchet, going to the Calder Cup final. I hope that he takes this opportunity and grasp it and has himself. a good season. I think, I like his mental makeup. I think he's mentally probably a lot tougher than he was five years ago. Right. But I'm still unsure, right? I still don't know about Marksham-Nielsen pairing. I know, I have zero idea what's going to happen. And, you know, part of that is with the defense that's playing in front of him. Right. But I just don't know, you know. And I was one of those guys that

hated the idea of Ryan Miller when they signed him to the three-year deal. You know, six million a year I hit it, but I kind of see the purpose of having kind of a stabilizing guy back there that you can pretty much trust every night not to beat you. Yeah. Right. And for a rebuilding team, that helps too to keep things competitive. You're losing still. Right.

But your guys aren't getting mentally beat down because you're losing 5-1 or the games, 3-0, 5 minutes in the first period. Yeah. Well, especially with Ryan Miller, he's pretty much been the definition of league average for the past however many years. And there's, you know, that sounds like you're insulting him, but it's actually a compliment because you know exactly. It's like a steadying presence.

You know exactly what you get. Yeah, and that's tough for a goaltender to do for over a long period of time. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, one anecdote on Marks, I told you this at the time, but I was playing, it was a nice day out here in Vancouver. I was playing some basketball outside, and I saw him, Delzato, and Tanna have come out and shoot some hoops, and he might be the worst basketball player ever seen. So I think it's only trending upwards in terms of stopping the puck compared to that.

And someone else said that, I think it must be the same day, but Good Branson lives up above the basketball courts? Right, up on David Lamb. Yeah. So he was, I guess he was taking Instagram stories of him throwing baby carrots down, not them on the court. That's awesome. All right, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor

and we'll pick up this discussion on the other side of things. Before we resume our conversation with Dan Murphy, let me share some exciting news with you. The HockeyPedio cast has itself a new sponsor. In the past, we've had fresh books, we've had Seek, and now we have Draft Kings, the leader in daily fantasy sports. And it's perfect timing with hockey season here.

Because now you can be part of the action all year long with one-day fantasy hockey at draftkings.com. And I think for me, that's the key right there. The daily component of the equation is the best part. I love a lot of things about fantasy sports, the competition, the fact that it makes watching the games more fun, and you're putting your knowledge of the sport to the test. But at the same time, with season-long leagues,

it's such a huge commitment. It can get stale when you have all the same players every single day, and no one in your league wants to trade, and, you know, you're scanning the waiver wire and the best players available on Mark Arkebello and T.J. Brendan. You don't have to worry about any of that with draft kings, where if you had a bad day or two and you pick the wrong players, you always get a clean sheet and a chance at a first start the following day.

There's also so many different ways to play. You can choose between public contests with big cash prizes or private contests where you're facing off against your friends. So hurry over to draftkings.com now and use the promo code PDO to play for free with your first deposit for your share of $5,000 in total prizes. That's promo code PDO to play for free with your first deposit, and that's only a draft king's at the game inside the game.

It's a minimum $5 deposit required. and eligibility restrictions apply, but you can go to draftkings.com and check out all those details. And now, let's get back to our conversation with Dan Murphy. Okay, so I think that's enough about the Canucks this season. I think we did, you know, we did 20 minutes on them there. We did our due diligence. Let's talk a little bit about sort of your job and go back in time.

I don't want to make you feel old or anything, but, you know, some of the different characters and personalities you've come covering the Canucks for all these years. When did you start covering the Canucks for Sportsnet? So, basically in prior to the O1102 season, Bell owned both SportsNet and TSN. Perry Sokelski was hosting the Canucks broadcast at the time

because you would do half the games on VTV and half the games on Sportsnet. Then the CRTC said you can't own, this is cornering the market, then have both, you know, 24-hour sports networks. You have to sell one. So, of course, they sold sports net at the time as the baby. And since Perry was a CTV employee, he couldn't afford just to go over and do to do 40 games a year,

60 games a year only. So I got the Canucks job kind of out of default, which was not exciting. You're coming in the Grizzies before. I did in the Grizzies for a year. So that was the 0-1-2 season. So that was the year that the Detroit Red Wings playoffs. Yes.

Yes. So that was my. first year covering the team full-time traveling. Mark Crawford was the coach. You know, when you mentioned, Cluchet, was the goalie. So that was kind of my first year. And the team was just on the upswing. So I kind of, I almost came in at the same time as the twins. Yeah. Well, that stretch from 01 there to 04, I guess, was sort of, I mean, I was 10 years old in 01. And I was sort of my like, sometimes sports and life aren't fair moments and a real wake-up calls in that regard sort of because I remember I love that team so much.

And, you know, they take the first two games from Detroit and in Detroit. And then, you know, they come back here and Glouche gives up the goal from center ice to the glitzrum and everything falls apart. And I guess. Eisenman couldn't even walk. Yeah. He used to stick to get off the ice. And then the Red Wings go on and win the cup.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, I guess that was the real sort of peak there from, I guess, about 2000 to maybe 2003, 2004 for the West Coast Express. And, you know, I was looking at the numbers while we're preparing for the show. And the numbers Nazlin and Bertuzi were putting up were insane. I believe that year in particular, they were second and third in the league in scoring. And Bertuzzi actually was running away with it on a per game basis because I think he made

10 games as well there. So, I mean, that was probably a pretty good time to come into the job and start covering the team. It was, I mean, it was fantastic. And before I forgot, I kind of, the modern day equivalents to me, I kind of think like Jamie Ben and Tyler Sagan, Bertuzi Nazan. That's kind of like the combo that you see in this day and age. But yeah, I mean, those two were dynamite. And as a character, Bertuzi was, you know, a real fun guy to be around. Like he was a grumpy bastard when the media was around. But he was actually a very good sense of humor when the cameras were off,

Naslin and Bertuzi. So now the makeup on the plane is ownership at the front, and then going back, it's ownership, management, coaches, media, training staff, players. But back in those days, the players sat right behind the media. So Shorthouse and myself sat right in front of Naslin and Bertuzi.

Like they were right behind us the whole time. Bertuzzi was a terrible flyer. He'd lay on the ground sometimes on takeoff or turbulence, cover his head like, and Henrik, too, by the way, so I don't want to embarrass him. But, so I wouldn't mean, I would talk to Todd all the time on flights and just a funny guy. I keep in touch with him now. So that's why I'm kind of happy to hear him on the radio.

You kind of get to see his personality a little bit. And I think he was kind of, you know, that was a tough, you know, probably 10-year stretch for him. Yeah. By his own fault, obviously. But that was a real exciting time with that team because it was a lot of young guys kind of growing together. I mean, you know, Jovenoski on the back end, Sallow was kind of still unheralded out of Ottawa. So it was a, you know, it was a fun time to kind of be around that team. So when you mentioned, you know, Bertuzi and sort of getting to know him off the ice and, you know, interacting like that and having quality conversations, I mean, obviously you've been doing this job long enough now where I assume you've kind of nailed this down to a science, but does it make it difficult sort of reporting in an unbiased?

bias perspective when you might be privy to information on a personal level that the casual fan out there isn't well i mean but that would have been the ultimate test right i had to cover his trial yeah yeah it was a court case i mean you're dealing only in facts how'd you feel like while that was going on well i mean it's but it's your job i mean and and i think that i mean for the most part i mean reporting facts about that whole thing was obviously kind of easy right i mean where if you were doing radio interviews and stuff where i remember going on uh uh uh a kind of couple shows in Colorado and, you know, then you can have your opinion on whether or not the tears were real in his press conference. Right. And where the Colorado people say, you know,

crocodile tears and you're saying, I kind of thought it was genuine. So that's where the disagreement was. But, I mean, we saw what happened on the ice. Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm reporting the facts from the trial. I mean, it's, you know, I think it's still, I'm not a columnist. I'm not an editorialist. You know, I write sometimes. But I think most of the time when you report, report and facts. As long as you're not strained from the facts, how can an athlete that you might kind of have a personal issue

with get mad at you? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's, it's, it's, it's, I've never, you know, there's been the odd time, more so coaches or GMs that have been really pissed at me.

A couple times players to have said like, how, you know, you know, this is what you said here. It's out of context, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I had one with Kessler one time. Berkey pulled me aside one time. Didn't like my line of questioning to a player.

Crawford wanted to have me kicked off the charter one time because of a story I did in the morning. And I remember this story. They blew a few leads in a game. They were on a losing streak. I did the story on the off day. And when I filed the story, I thought in my head, am I being too easy on this team in this story?

And the next day I found out of Jack McAllar is like, you better stay out of Crow's way because he wants you off the charter. I was like, man, maybe I wasn't too easy. But, I mean, that's, you're dealing with, these are people whose jobs, they want to protect their players, they want to protect themselves. Right. But I think for the most part, if you report in facts. Right. Well, I think especially, you know, it's a bit tougher now when, if the team is losing a lot, like, you don't want to be, you want to be fair about it, but you don't want to be, like, overly critical or even, like, sometimes people can take itself very personally if you're criticizing their performance.

But, you know, you also don't want to be the type of sort of homer sometimes you see. I'm not going to name many names, but in every market there are certain individuals that work in the media where it's like they spin everything in the most positive direction possible, and sometimes that's not reporting facts. And I think, especially now with social media, and you're live tweeting during a game, different things, I think the thing, because when you have to be critical on a team

over and over and over and over again on a team that loses a lot of games, I think where you have to be careful of is sarcasm and snark. Like being mean, about it. Right. I think that's probably where you can get out of, and it's easy to. You want to make a joke. There's an easy joke sitting out there. You can do it and then kind of forgetting like, you know, let's not pile on. So I think

that's what you have to be careful with in this day and age was before that avenue wasn't available. Right? You'd be thinking it and you'd be saying to the guy sitting beside in the press box and you have a good chuckle over it. Yeah. But now you actually put it out there and then you're like, eh, probably didn't need to pile on. Yeah. I mean, I'm, listen, I'm starting to learn that myself where

company man. Now that I'm getting a larger profile and more people are looking at Twitter feed, I can't throw necessarily the type of bombs that I was throwing before, but I guess you got to learn for your mistakes. Yeah, I mean, so let's talk a bit more about that team. Mark Crawford was the coach at the time, and now, you know, he went overseas, he came back, now he's the assistant coach in Ottawa with Guy Boucher and sort of, by all accounts, you hear maybe, you know, he refined his approach to coaching or, you know, you hear this stuff all the time where guys go away a bit, maybe go over Europe and come back with a,

new outlook on life and their profession. I think the wrap on Crow and all of his stops was great the first couple of years and then eventually yelling at you for enough days in a row to eventually sort of dilute that message. And Ken Hitchhawk is another example of that. Like is that, is that accurate? Yeah, I think so. I mean, players back in those days, you know, I remember asking guys

because at the time Laviolet was in Carolina. and he yelled a lot back then too and I remember asking Merrick Malik who yells more and he goes I think and because I wanted to know about Crawford

because I think that maybe La Vialette is louder and more sustained because Crow is way meaner like he would just cut guys down on the bench so maybe he's refined that he went to L.A.

and then went to Dallas and flamed out there pretty quickly and then now he's been waiting again so you hear the stories summer crow winter crow which is totally true you get crow in the summer and you talk to him warm stuff you get during season you could pass him in a hallway of a hotel and he might not even look at you yeah so i mean that's that's the way he's been i don't know as he changed maybe he's

different as an assistant right or associate than he was a head coach but if he gets the head coach does he revert i feel like the uh the assistant coach in the n hl and i guess for all sports is sort of like yeah the backup quarterback where it's like kind of good call back off and everyone's like clamoring for the assistant coach and then all of a sudden when he gets into the job, maybe. Things change a little bit. Exactly. So, okay, so we spend it forward.

I think the following season, they come back from a 3-1 deficit against the Blues, then they blow their own 3-1 lead against the Wild. And then the year after was the one that, I guess, 12 or 13-year-old, Demetri Filipovich, really took hard. You know, they win that game 6 in Calgary in triple overtime. I believe Brendan Morrison scored the goal.

And then the following game, game 7 at home here, Marty Jelina just stuck a dagger in my heart. And, you know, power play goal. Every time he comes up on the bench on TV broadcasts or you hear his name, it's been hard for any years now. I still think back to that and I still haven't let it go. Well, I'll give you one story, and I've said it before.

I'm not sure what venue. But game six, because at the time, Mark Bergervan was a healthy scratch. He was a black ace with the Canucks. Yep. And so I was, you know, we're down at the press room in Calgary because the game could end at any time. so you want to get ready to, you're not up in the press box anymore. And Bergervin was obviously in the dress room, and then the players go in after the second overtime.

So he comes out in the hallways, we're just kind of chatting. And his line was, the boys are so tight, you couldn't squeeze a grease BB up their asses right now. Because he was always a joker. And then they scored. And then, yeah, I mean, I remember that game seven, too,

because Jovanowski was in the box, right? Yeah. To score the time. line goal. And then within a minute it was over. I think Alex Al-W was a goal. But yeah, I think for the Canucks and Bertuzi was suspended. Wasn't, wasn't playing. So I think that could have been, and Cluchy got hurt in that series. So I think that that could have been a year where maybe there was some damage done. Yeah. But, you know, heck, this is the Canucks. cliche. I remember the time

everyone around here and myself included, I was a huge fan of his. I loved sort of of just the way he played the position and how gritty and intense he was and all this. And obviously the team was good at the time. So he was piling on the wins. And that was a time where I thought wins were the most important metric for evaluating goalies. And things have obviously changed over the past

handful of years. But yeah, looking back at it now, it's kind of, in hindsight, it is a little upsetting because you look at how good that team was. and then the fact that Clucay was just so below average. I mean, obviously, say a percentage across the league was down at that time, but even compared to his peers, his performance was lagging a bit behind. And at the time, everyone, I feel like most people were kind of cool with it just because the way he played the position, and I guess more innocent times.

And I agree. And I think he didn't prove. He did get better. And then injuries kind of derailed his career. But, I mean, like, Canucks for the best team in the entire league in 2011, and they had a very good goaltender, Robert Luongo. So it never, you're not giving. guaranteed anything with anyone in goal.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that perhaps, you know, in those years, because in that game 7 against Minnesota, the year prior, it wasn't very good. And that was that the Excel Energy Center was just relentless in that game 6 or in that whole playoff series. I don't know if you remember, whenever an opposing goal had an end of goal, the whole crowd would point in unison. And so just the picture of the Tomahawk chalk. Yeah.

Except they all be pointing at the one goalie and then to be chanting, SIF, Ziv. And it was so loud. And you just see a goalie or clucie, just shrinking more and more than that, you know, after giving up a goal. But I can remember that vividly too. And that was, you know, we're not people lining up for tickets in Bertuzia. You know, what are you lining up for?

We're not coming back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, speaking of those chants and how it can sometimes get to you, you know, I'm sure people say. saw this during their cup run last year in Nashville, but I actually went to a game, I believe, in December or something. It was a throwaway game against the abs. But, you know, I guess it was

Picardinet at the time and he gives up a couple goals and everyone in the crowd is chanting, it's all your fault and you suck. And it's, it's, like I, you know, I think, I think chanting the goalie's name is one of the most useless chance because I guess, I don't know if you're really mentally fragile, maybe that would affect you. But like 20,000 people saying it's all your fault and you sucks, seems like even if you're a pretty confident individual, it could probably rattle you a little bit. Yeah, that cell block 303 or whatever, they've got a whole bunch. It's almost like a college basketball atmosphere a little bit, right, with those chance. And they even had that when they first came in the league, when they were still getting their chance up. They do the

the starting lineup, you know, so like starting, you know, and goal, Ryan Miller, sucks. You know, defense, Tann of sucks. Edler sucks. They get the coach, coaching the Vancouver Gonax, Willie Dardton. He sucks too. You know, so they have a whole bunch of difference. It just cracks me up I think Canucks fans, the ones that are still listening at this point, will probably hate us because we're really opening all the old wounds. But we're sort of, you know, we're making our way up to present day right now. So we've got to talk about 2010-11. Yeah. And the reason I bring it up is because yesterday I was doing a Q&A on Reddit, on AMA, and I got asked, was there any point during that 2011 playoff season where you sort of let yourself think that the Canucks were actually going to win the cup?

Yeah. Yeah. Burroughs. Yeah. Game two. Yeah. Yeah, when they go up two nothing, you're thinking, well. I was like, this might, I mean, because you're thinking they've got to lose four

of the next five. Right. Right. And at that point, you know, there had been a couple of, you know, a couple of hiccups against Chicago. But, you know, Kessler was great. Nashville. They kind of steamrolled San Jose thanks to the power play.

And then they get into the final and they win the first game, late goal, second game overtime. They're like, okay, maybe this is it. Yep. Right? And game three happened, you're like, well, maybe not. But, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, there's so many what-ifs in sports, Ham Hughes, Rome. I mean, I chuckle when you look at that game seven lineup, not to belittle anyone, but Glass, Arreskovich, Tambalini, who was playing on defense.

They'd called up Nolan Baumgartner from the beach. Yeah. You know, get him to tell that story one time. And basically, I was on a beach for a month like, uh, you know. Edler broke his finger and Rome's been suspended and some Albert's got hurt. Like, we might need you. So, yeah, I mean, whatever. The best player on the ice, I think, for that whole series was Tim Thomas.

Yeah, no question. You know, he won the cup. Yeah, it's just remarkable. I mean, it hasn't even, what, it has been seven years now since. And obviously, I mean, listen, in this sport, things can change so fast and especially with the salary cap, it's, things can generally go downhill a lot faster than they go. improving uphill. So I don't know, it's just, it's, it's crazy to look back and see everything that's happened in this market since then. Well, and how kind of fast it evaporated. I mean,

they had a great year the next year. Yeah. But L.A. was just otherworldly in the playoffs against everyone. Well, that was my big sort of come to Jesus moment with analytics where I remember, I think Thomas Transers, like, and Cam Sharon were two of the only people at the time that were picking the Kings to beat the Canucks. And I was like, it's a one eight. Come on. This team won the President's trophy. There's no way they're going to lose. And then you watch them play, and he's like, they just couldn't get the puck from the king. No, and they went up 3-0 in every playoff years, didn't they? And then I guess it went six in the finals.

Their toughest test was Mike Smith being out of his mind for a couple of games. Yeah, yeah, and then they went six games in the finals, and then Steve Bernier ran some from behind, and then it was over. That's all I kind of remember. But yeah, so they were still very good, and Daniel was concussed, didn't come back to game three in the first round. But then the next year they were just done.

They were done. Yeah, it evaporated. I believe they got swept by the sharks and then L.A. Migno was out. Yeah. Yeah, but you could tell. there that that was it the mojo had officially run out of that group so like what looking back at the alley in vina era i'm always interested by this because it's such a divisive topic in mancouver and i think we're starting to see it a bit in new york now and this is probably

true of every coach eventually you sort of wear you're welcome and yeah if you're unless you're winning the cup every year you're generally going to be considered as on the hot seat and in a big market and you know at the time people gave him a lot of credit for the Canucks success but also sort of embracing stuff like playing the city an incredible amount of offensive zone starts and stuff like that and really using Mani Mahhotra for all the defensive stuff and things like that

and I'm still an advocate of what he's doing in New York but then you see some of the stuff where he's playing Dan Gerardi and Mark Stahl more than he's playing some of the other way more talented options and it becomes tough to defend and I think the rap on him was always sort of not trusting young guys. But I guess that's sort of like a universal thing amongst NHL coaches. I totally think it is.

And I think all coaches have their blind spots. Yeah. All coaches have guys they trust. All coaches have... They're talking about Tanner Glass right now. What's that? Well, no, I mean, but he didn't trust him. I mean, he only played 11 games in the league last year.

But then, you know, due to injuries and stuff, he got to play in the playoffs. It was decent. Yep. But yeah, I mean, and it's... And this is where players and I think coaches, alike where the eye test versus the numbers test for them is especially players when they're in the battle they only see the guys that are hammering guys in the corner and and trying to fight other guys or whatever they see that like that's when they're they don't yeah

understand that someone else is going to get the puck out of the zone real quickly they just see okay this guy's willing to crush okay so that I think coaches get that a little bit too where they see guys that are battlers and they fall in love with the way they battle instead of the way they play. And I think that's why coaches get blind spots in certain players. Well, I think, I feel like we see that most this time of year. I mean, a good example is, you know, Kailori Amamoto makes the, makes the oilers out of camp. And it's somewhat surprising. And then you see he plays like five or six minutes in his first game. And I, you know, makes a mistake at one point and just gets benched for an entire period. And I think that's like the most frustrating thing

as a fan when you just you sort of see that type of conservative nature and punishing young players for trying to play their game and occasionally making mistakes which do happen right and I try to be forgiving because I understand that you know if you're the coach and you

have your job is on the line you might be making different decisions than if you're just sitting back from the comfort of your of the couch but it can be sometimes kind of grinding your gears a little bit and I think we're going to see that a little bit with the Canucks like people really want to see Vertanen, really want to see Besser,

but I'm not sure what Greens trust in is in either those players yet. I bet they question Besser's foot speed a little bit, and I bet they question Vertanan's defensive capabilities a little bit. But if you're going to, I mean, this is the whole development thing, if you're going to have Vortan with a team, you've got to let him play, and if he's not going to play, then send him down. Right.

Right, I mean, that's the whole thing. So if he sits up the first game, he's got to get him in the second game, because you can't have, you know, these young assets not playing somewhere, not developing somehow. Yep, I agree with that. Best John Torterola story. I mean, it wasn't a long run, so you, I mean, maybe there are a lot of stories, but. Oh, boy. I remember someone, I don't know if we talked about this, but I remember.

I feel like the last time you were on you, you gave me, like, a toilet story or something like that? Yeah, and there was another one where, Booth got shredded for being late to a meeting, but he had been there the whole time. Just... David Booth, back in the NHL, by the way. Yeah, but I always thought he has a fourth-line value player at a million. I always thought that he could play.

Right. I don't know if he got kind of banished because he was a little bit weird. Yeah, definitely zanian out there. And also, you know, the contract and what they paid to get him. Yeah. Well, exactly. But even after that, you went Toronto, right? He had, his numbers are okay.

Yeah. But, boy, obviously, like, Tortorella, just say this, to Tortarella, if you had, if you talk to John Tortorella one-on-one, you'd believe everything he said. Right. If you got, he looked at you in the eyes and he spoke with a conviction, you believed. Right? And then you're kind of like, he walks away. And you're like, what was there? I'm just a spell right there.

Like, you know, I'm ready to do this. So, you know, I never, you know, and again, and this is where, like, it's tough not to let how you feel get. in the way of how you evaluate someone. He was always a very, very nice man to me. Right. But then you hear how he treated some players. Yeah. And you're like, the two don't compute.

And you have to evaluate a guy on how he deals with players. And if he hadn't talked to Alex Burroughs until December, then what the heck was he doing as a coach? Yeah. Right? I mean, and he wanted to trade Burroughs. And, you know, so all these kind of things where there were guys or coaches are working behind the scenes, but you'll never hear that kind of stuff up front. So I'll just say on a personal level, the way he dealt with me was such a contradiction of the way you heard he dealt with players. Right.

Yeah. I'm very curious to see how, I mean, Columbus as a team is fascinating, but I'm also so curious to see whether that honeymoon period runs out a bit because you saw all those stories last year, especially early in the year when Columbus was winning, it's like, Twitter is a change man. Well, and also, too, remember, like it was the World Cup and the U.S. just got decimated. Yes. Right? and then he comes in and they're just expecting them just to fold out of the 10 and then they had a pretty good season. So I think he's another guy that runs hot. The good players are usually going to like him because he plays them a ton, but he can be tremendously hard on people.

And I think that's where Green is a bit of new school, old school. He's going to be really hard on guys, but I think he's a very good communicator to tell them why he's being hard on him. Yeah, similar to someone like a Mike Sala, and I think you know, you hear all these stories about how, you know, you can see it definitely, you need to be a disciplinary and in some sense and keep guys in line, but you also sort of have to relate to the players. Otherwise, I mean, it is like a work setting and you're kind of coworkers. I guess you're technically their boss, but it's like you need to relate on some level beyond just telling them what to do. Exactly. You have to be able to communicate. Okay. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about analytics on television. Okay. So I think, you know, you yourself have been very giving and willing to embrace it and learn and teach viewers and listeners at home about a lot of this stuff. But obviously run into a lot of roadblocks. Mostly, I think, we see like the time restraints are probably the biggest challenge? Yeah, I would say that it's difficult to translate the numbers in a thing.

three-minute segment to people that might not necessarily recognize the most simple metrics, I think, right? Because I'm still, like, my baseline is low. Yeah. And we always talk with us. I want to have a tutorial. I want you to take whatever site we're using our natural stat trick. I want to be able to go on there myself and say, type in this and let me see, you know, what I do. But I think, I think you and I had a bit of a breakthrough last year in terms of a good way to relate it to the average fan is with comparable. So over the, this 10-game stretch, you know, Marcus Grandin's scoring at the same rate as Alexander of Etchen.

So this 10 games or 15 games. So that, I think, is a good way that we'll be able to do it. But it's very, very hard because some people, you know, it's almost like stick to sports. Yeah. Right? Like with the political stuff. It's like that some people don't want to feel like you're giving them homework or, you know, but I think that it's becoming, I mean, obviously it's becoming more.

more widely known. It's obviously very valuable. So I think that even though the numbers, guys like yourself, are even further ahead, I think you still kind of have to start at the basic, basic stuff to let the people that have been reluctant in to kind of find them to realize where it is. So I think in television, it's still very difficult, especially in a broadcast, right, in the course of a broadcast where you have 30 seconds to tell a story out of a commercial break. Right. Right. You can almost can't do it in that sense, unless you're going to run graphics, maybe. So maybe there's a, instead of plus minus in two years, you're going to run just a course C4 percentage beside a player. Maybe that.

Or even just like a shot plus minus, right? Because I think that's people at home would probably be able to grasp that. Goals per 16. Like just like certain things that I think that are pretty easy to grasp. Right. So I think that's the way it's got to go. But it's just so hard to know what. because when you i mean sports net

tsn cbc they'll do these different surveys and you got to realize there's still a lot of your viewership is 50 to 70 you know actually you know 40 to 70 like really still like a kind of a young man's game

the numbers game yeah no that's right and obviously you know this is a another storytelling tool but another thing you gotta keep in mind is you ought to entertain the viewer and sometimes if you are just reciting numbers I understand it can be a bit dry and bit boring for people. And yeah, I think definitely the graphics and comparables, and just sort of putting stuff in perspective and maybe even, like if you do like a sort of a series where you start off super bare bones

and you just basically outline what everything means and then all of a sudden you build on it slowly. Because I do think, you know, there's obviously casual fans that tune in once every couple weeks or whatever, but a lot of people do generally kind of progressively tune in for every game as well. And it's going to take, you know, big personalities in the media, you know, like Mike Johnson. Yep.

It's embraced it. Elliot Friedman, I think, has embraced it. So it's going to take some of these guys to bring it to the real main stream. Right. To show that it's actually cool. Exactly. No, honestly, I mean, that's what it's going to have to be. And I'm really interested to see how it's going to be integrated as broadcasts go on

because it is very difficult still at this stage to get it in shows. Yeah. I'm looking forward to see where we take that in the future. Dan, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Speaking of those broadcasts, let's plug some stuff. So where can people find you and what can they look forward to this season for you? Same thing, regional Canucks with the odd hockey night game on the road thrown in. So first up, like the CBC crew is doing the opener.

So that'll be done by the time this run. So Tuesday, Tuesday night, senators in town, Thursday, the Jets. So both those will be our broadcasts. Cool. I'm looking forward to seeing that and working with you this season. And we'll chat soon. wrap me on. The Hockey P.DOCAST with Dume. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.