The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 350: Quarantine Rewatch, Canucks vs. Blackhawks 2011

Episode Date: April 5, 2020

Thomas Drance helps deep dive the 2011 first round series between the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks, which marked the third consecutive year they met in the postseason and culminated in an epic Game 7 overtime. The categories we cover include:5:00 The legacy of this game and how we remember it12:00 The rivalry between the Canucks and Blackhawks19:00 How overqualified this was for a Round 1 matchup25:00 The Alex Burrows redemption story33:00 How ahead of their time these teams were37:00 Who looks most impressive on rewatch48:30 The rarely seen well executed offer sheet58:20 Toews vs. Crosby debates1:01:15 The Canucks handling of goalies1:11:30 Most rewatchable sequence in the game1:17:30 Becoming Corey Crawford believer1:23:00 The Biggest 'THAT' Guy1:26:00 Most unanswerable questions1:31:20 The Sedins and Kesler on Apex Mountain1:39:00 Who won the game?Stay safe, get comfortable at home, kick back with a beverage of your choice, and watch along with us here. You can also go back into the archives of the show and catch up on the previous Quarantine Rewatchables we’ve already done: Penguins vs. Red Wings 2009 Bruins vs. Maple Leafs 2013 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.

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My name is Dimitri Philpovich. and joining me is my good buddy Thomas Drenz. Thomas, what's going on, man? How are you holding up these days? Oh, I'm doing all right, man, just trying to make it through, muddle along. You know, I'm writing fiction now instead of covering hockey, but that's not too big a departure for most hockey writers, and it's not for me either. Yes. Well, at least it sounds like you're keeping safe and you're keeping busy. And yeah, I thought, you know, it's funny. I remember earlier this season a couple months back when I first had this idea of doing these rewatchables, obviously I was going to wait until the summer. or when there was no hockey on, so we're doing it a bit sooner than I had envisioned or hoped to. But we've been, we've had this in the works for a while. And I told you, like, when I get to this game, which is the Canucks Blackhawks, 2011 series, game seven, I wanted to do it with you because I knew that you were writing about it as well.

And we'll plug your athletic deep dive that you did with the oral history from Burroughs' goal and everything. But you were the perfect guess to do this because you've actually been thinking about it for a while, whereas I've spent the past like 72 hours just falling down this rabbit hole. Well, the good thing, too, is I've actually. actually had the good fortune of talking to, you know, 12 or 13 of the players who played in the game about the game itself in extraordinary detail. And so, you know, I think the fact is that this is a game that I'm pretty well positioned to provide some additional insight into. And there's a lot of stuff that did that made the, like, didn't get off the cutting room floor in terms of that

article. The first draft of that 5,000 word oral history was actually double the size. So there's a whole lot of stuff that I'm looking forward to getting to use as we go through, you know, what is in my view anyway, one of the most dramatic playoff games. I mean, if you build like a top five of great playoff games from the last five to 10 years, like I think this certainly should make the list along with, you know, game seven of Chicago, L.A. series back in 2013. For me, that Jets, Nashville, game seven a couple of years back, sort of on that list, that hockey was just so fast. And those teams were both so loaded. But it's in that class.

And maybe even, you know, like the stakes weren't as high as they were for that King's L.A. series. I mean, those were two dynasties fighting for, you know, what would be the third cup to separate them. Now that we look back on it, that's sort of the stakes of that one. But in terms of the storylines and the drama, I don't know that this. this game is matched by anything we've seen in the last 10 years. Yeah, that was my first takeaway just from diving back into this world and reading all the articles, looking at all the stats, actually watching all of these games from these series, and actually went back and rewatch most of the highlights from both the 2009 and 2010 versions

of this matchup as well. And those happened in the second round, whereas this one happened in round one. So I agree that the stakes kind of felt like they were smaller than some of those other series you referenced. But just because of all the bad blood that it built between these two. teams and the history and the fact that this was the third part of that trilogy and the fact that that they were both really, really good and we're going to get into all of that. Certainly added some credence to it.

And I'm excited to hear about all these behind-the-scenes anecdotes you're going to have a nice little touch of reporting to the PDO cast. You know, sports had also ran this game recently and I think that the general consensus online was that they butchered it in terms of what they showed and didn't and how they presented it. And so hopefully people that still kind of left with a bitter taste in their mouth, getting to experience that full satisfaction will come away from this podcast with feeling like you and I did adjust this. Yeah, hopefully. And, and, you know, I think especially missing out on the Burr penalty shot, a penalty shot attempt that he says is the worst of his career when he looks back on

it. And also missing out on that Patrick Sharp save backdoor. You know, I think those are pretty crucial sort of moments, especially because it was Burr in the penalty box. But we'll, but we'll, we'll, we'll get into it as we go. Save it, yeah. Don't jump ahead. I know, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's go. So, yeah, just a couple of housekeeping things before we get into it. I want people to go back. Everyone has a lot of free time. Now, hopefully everyone's staying indoors and being safe whenever they can. We've done two parts of these

PDOCS rewatchables already. This is part three. We're going to do a bunch. I'm doing Penn's Flyers, 2012, that first round shit show with Charlie O'Connor coming up here soon. Tremendous. That's going to be fun. It'll lower stakes for sure, but just entertainment value will be through the roof. The series in which Claude Jureau memorably eclipsed Sidney Crosby is the best player in the world. Well, we're going to get into another player in this series. You and I are talking

about reportedly eclipsing Cindy Crosby is the best player in the world here as well. So, okay, where were you when? So I'll leave the floor open to you here because you and I actually have, I think this is why this is going to be such a fun exercise. Obviously have a personal attachment to this series as well

based on where we were at at the time and our allegiances. So I'm excited to get into this. So where were you when this series was happening? So I actually came home. It was Easter weekend and I flew home. It was the very first time that I brought my wife back to meet my family. So at the time I was six months into dating my wife, who I'm obviously still with 10 years on. And so it was the first time I brought her home to meet my family. And I remember I had like a Blackberry Pearl, like something really, really retro. And we flew out the day of game five. So the Canucks had lost the first game in the series to have a 3-1 lead.

And game five, we're flying back and there's no in-flight Wi-Fi, right? There's no nothing. And I'm sitting there refreshing the score of the game on my Blackberry Pearl just like fruitlessly for the whole flight. And finally we sort of get and we're coming down to land and we get probably what, a thousand feet up in the air. And I finally get the score and it's 5-1. and I'm just blown, like, I'm blown away. I'm like, oh, that's so ugly.

And I sort of scroll down and see that Lou got pulled. And I was like, oh, boy, game six is going to be nuts. So Easter Sunday, the Canucks lose to the Blackhawks in game six. Corey Schneider starts over Luongo. And I remember at the time, I thought this is the biggest sports story in Vancouver history. Luongo not starting this game. Like, there's never been a story like that in this market. especially when you consider Luongo's national profile.

So I remember that game really vividly. We watched it at my grandpa and grandma's house, and my grandparents had actually just sold their place. It was like our last family dinner at their place, the place that they owned when I grew up. So again, this is like all this loaded stuff for me, you know? And so then we get into the game seven. And again, because I lived in Toronto at the time,

visited home. So I flew back the day of Game 7 and I landed just about 20 minutes before puck drop. And I remember I'm in the baggage carousel waiting for my luggage when Burroughs scores the goal that opens the game. And I wait at the airport at this luggage carousel. My wife going crazy. She's just like, can we just go? Can we just go? And I'm just like, we'll go at intermission. So I literally make my wife like stand around for 40 minutes while I watch the first period. Obviously she knew what she was getting into by then. And so we get a cab and I get home probably miss about two minutes of gameplay in the second period and watch the rest of the game at home with my wife. And the thing I remember probably most closely, and obviously look,

I was a Canucks fan back then. I wasn't really like a full-time block. or yet even like that's how old this series was and you know I sort of stopped being a fan I'd say two years on or a year and a half on um for for reasons of professional decorum and you know by the time i've gone and worked for the panthers and come back like I really truly don't have any allegiance to teams I just to some of the people I know around the league who I'd like to see do well so But then I was a really big Canucks fan and I remember the game tying goal, which we'll get into being one of the lowest moments that I've had as a sports fan in the history of my life. Wow. That's a big, that's a big statement.

I think, well, I think part of what kind of gets into that is because of that sort of feeling of inevitability that you had as a Canucks fan, I'm assuming, based on sort of how the Blackhawks had won the past two years. And then the fact that they saw this three nothing lead slip away and it just felt. like it was just a matter of time and when Taze scores that goal it was like oh here we go again I wonder what the what the win probability was like before that and then after that especially like if you just like personally took it in terms of like your emotional perspective on it yeah got to be from your emotional perspective it was 95% right yeah from the in actual fact it was probably like 49% I mean by the time you have 70 seconds left in the game and a penalty has been taken that will last for the whole contest, right?

You have to think the game's done. And, you know, I talked to Allie and Vino about it when the Canucks ran through Philadelphia this season. And Vino is like, the only thing I really remember about that goal is that I put two Ds on because the Canucks had a one D set up on their second unit that season. And I just think it's funny. Like, even then nine years on, right? He's like doing the classic coaches, you know, well, I didn't.

what I could, which I just think's remarkable. So yeah, at the time, I think actually at some point during this series, I created a Twitter account and I decided to, I still hadn't started blogging yet, but I decided that I had some takes that I had to fire off and I felt very inspired. I remember watching this game at a friend's house and thinking back to it, we actually ran out to get some more beers after regulation. And a bunch of other people, I guess, had similar ideas. And so we held up there for a while and we almost missed the winner because it happens so quickly into overtime. And then I just remember the party on the streets after. It was just nuts. Everyone was

high-fiving, chanting, like climbing, bus stops. I guess in hindsight, it was like an ominous foreshadowing for what could happen if that energy was channeled in a negative light. But I don't know, it just feels like people were genuinely here happier when the Canucks beat the Blackhawks in round one than they were at any point when they beat the predators or the sharks in the ensuing rounds and actually made the Stanley Cup final. And so that kind of just speaks and captures the mindset and also the stakes in the series, even though it was just a round one matchup, it had such a sort of emotional backdrop to it that raised the stakes so much further than your traditional round one matchup. Yeah, no, and that's right. The two previous years, right, and what people need to remember

about the two previous years too is, you know, and this was in the DNA of the Chicago Blackhawks, and I think it's in the DNA of a Joel Quenville team. Like, I think the Florida Panthers obviously had it this year when they just started this weird season salvaging streak of just like overcoming four nothing deficits, right? Like there's something about a Joel Quenble team that never says die. And so that first series in 2009, the Canucks take the first. two games, or sorry, the Canucks win game one and game three. And in game four, the Chicago Blackhawks are throwing their absolute fastball, like just dominant. And they catch a Duncan

Keith Seabrook, Taves line shift against Vancouver's fourth line, which at the time included Ryan Johnson, he of the lowest ever coursey four, right? Darcy Hortichuk, right? Who, I mean, you know, just a meatball. And I can't even remember the other four. It might have been Rick Rippin. And so they catch them out and it's like just they looked like the Cedine twins, that group of Chicago players. They just controlled possession for 100 seconds.

And the fourth line breaks out against the grain, against the tired Chicago team. And Darcy Hortichuk finishes the play and gives the Canucks a one goal lead. that stands up into the last 80 seconds of the game. And with 80 seconds left, Willie Mitchell tries to clear the puck. Marion Hosa intercepts a goal kind of like the Burroughs goal, like not too dissimilar from the Burroughs game winner, which we'll get into.

And scores. So that's sort of the line between the Canucks being up 3-1 in the series and the series being tied. Vancouver doesn't win another game in the series. Patrick Kane eliminates the Canucks with a hat trick. the next year was the best version of the Chicago team, that 2010 team. Like their third line had Bufflin at right wing, Boland at center, and Andrew Ladd at left wing. Like literally just all guys who would go on to play, you know, first line minutes in the next season, really, because Chicago had to dismantle, right?

And, I mean, that team was an absolute juggernaut in Vancouver probably didn't ever have a chance. But the Canucks win the first game, 5-1. In the second game, they're up to nothing after the second. second period and it looked like maybe this the year season would be different right like Vancouver is about to after the first period you're thinking Vancouver's going to go home with a two oh series lead and have you know four chances or three chances to win this on home ice and I remember it's a big Brent Seabrook hit seems to change the momentum I know that's a really old school hockey talk not not not generally for the PDO cast but that's sort of how it went

anyway Chicago goes on to win um both that game and the two games in Vancouver, it goes back to Chicago down 3-1. Vancouver pulls one out, really strong game from BX in that one, but Chicago sort of wins. So it's not just that Chicago had beaten Vancouver, it's that Chicago had shown signs of vulnerability in both series, and in both cases, turn the tide so decisively, just so decisively. And done so in a way that really clowned the Canucks, right? Like did it in a way that they were beating them up on the ice between the whistles and not. You know, Andrew Ladd and Bufflin had absolutely terrorized Luongo.

And so then you get into this 2010-11 season, and the Canucks are like a perfect team. Probably the best team in NHL history to not win the cup, or at least of the cap era. Maybe you can make the argument for the 18, 19, Tampa Bay Lightning. But, you know, based on the fact that the Lightning, you know, did a lot less in the playoffs, I think you'd probably say you'd probably give the nod to Vancouver. So they come in and, you know, Verstieg, Bufflin, Ladd had all been offloaded, right? Like this was Brian Campbell, too. Like this was, oh, no, I'm sorry, Brian Campbell's in this series.

Campbell's actually matching up against the twins in this game. So, sorry, but either way, this team had been dramatically weakened year over year. And the Canucks seemed perfect. And you get down to this last game of the season. And I think this is a really important thing to remember. The Blackhawks lose to the Detroit Red Wings in an afternoon game. And it was a game where if they'd won, they would have punched their ticket. And because they lost, they were tied or they had one point up on the Minnesota Wild.

Sorry, that's wrong, the Dallas Stars. And this was a Dallas Stars team that had Louis Erickson on it, obviously, and was coached by Mark Crawford. So they go into Minnesota. And Minnesota barely ice is an NHL team, right? like three call-up guys on the roster, like very much team that's out of the equation, playing out the string. And again, Minnesota is down, I think three to one. Or maybe it's two to nothing.

But they're down by two goals going into the third period. And this, like, Dallas team just chokes, just completely chokes, completely unjustifiably lose. And as a result of that game, the Chicago Blackhawks even qualify for the playoffs. So this Blackhawks team actually had really good underlying numbers, no goaltending that year, and they shouldn't have even made it if Dallas could have just taken care of business. Dallas managed to do it. Jonathan Taves told me this year that after they lost to Detroit in Chicago, he goes home.

He doesn't often drink, but he opens up a bottle, and he just starts drinking while watching the game being like, this is my nightmare. I don't even control my destiny. Like, how did we get here after winning the cup? and then he sees the Minnesota team come back. He threw the bottle out. He threw it into the garbage and was just like, fuck, let's go, boys. Playoffs.

Well, I mean, yeah, you mentioned like this rivalry had been percolating between these two teams for three straight playoffs. You've got, actually, when going back and watching, I think, you know, maybe it wasn't the highest quality of play, but that game six, the deciding game in 2009, where the wheels just completely come off on the third period. And I think it winds up being seven, five, but there's a ton of goals. goals and the third. That's probably the highest in terms of just pure entertainment value. But what stuck out to me was clearly by the time you got to this 2011 matchup, the pillars on both teams in terms of the core were still there. But there have been so much turnover, especially, I mean, the Blackhawks, we know that they had to give up all those guys because

of cap implications or as Ray's Ray in this game says cap augmentation or something. But for the Canucks, too, like, in 2009 and even 2010 series, they've got like, Mitchell and Olin and Shane O'Brien on the blue line. They've got the late Pavel Dimitra, Matt Sundin, like Bernier and Wellwood are playing these big roles. And it's a completely different roster and on the margins by the time they get into this matchup. But, you know, what age the best for me, I guess, it's kind of skipping ahead here, but it speaks to the sort of setting the scene or the lasting legacy of this game was just the quality and depth of these teams and how overqualified it was for a round one matchup. You spoke about how the

Blackhawks sort of limped in here. And I think they were labeled this season as like the hangover hawks because they most notably like celebrated quite hard that summer and then lost a bunch of players. But they were really good. Like what stuck out to me looking at these numbers is, you know, they limp in as the eighth seed with 97 points. I think the ducks are like the four or five seed this year and they have 99 points. Like it was the rate, the margin was that thin in the west.

And a lot of those teams ahead of them did not have the underlying profile. The Blackhawks did here where in the final 20 games, which we know is a pretty good predictor of playoff success. They were actually third best in shot share at like 55.9% and the Canucks were fourth. You know, they're first this year in terms of just a bunch of underlying metrics. They're like a top five offensive team, fifth at five and five one five fourth overall. What was interesting was they decided to give because they let Antianemi walk or they couldn't afford him this summer. So they brought in Marty Turco as their backup, and he's on his last legs.

I mean, I think he's 36 years old at this point. They give him 27 games. He has like a sub-900 save percentage. So I think they threw away a bunch of points there. They kind of slow played their way into it. And so they fall into this round one matchup with the Canucks. And just like speaking about the sort of profile or the resume that the Canucks had this year, I'm going to list off some accolades for them.

They scored the most goals. They gave up the fewest goals. They win the President's trophy with 117 points. They have the first ranked. power play, the third ranked penalty kill. And the reward for that is this Blackhawks team, which arguably is the best team in the Western Conference. And it was so obscene. So just rewatching that, that was like the lasting legacy for me here where it's like the Blackhawks looked like they weren't as good and they'd clearly lost some key players. But they still had that aura of them as the defending champions

and they had that core in place, whereas the Canucks were the best team in the regular season, but they hadn't proven themselves. So they were trying to get over that hump, which is what sort of exacerbated all of the underlying issues or concerns about them when they blew that 3-0 lead heading into this game seven yeah and two quick things one is and this is probably a little bit irrelevant but i still need to bring it up the ducks with the 99 points just because you brought them up they they went on a crazy tear led by corey perry whose last 20 games of the 1011 season are completely pornographic like 14 goals like just ludicrous and as a result he becomes probably the weakest heart trophy winner in

NHL history beating Daniel Siddine just because he had the narrative heft of putting his team on his back. An absolute travesty. Like a true travesty, one of the rare occasions when the Lindsay in the heart don't agree. Just a

really an abysmal call by the professional hockey writers buying into the Perry thing and sort of indulging some Sadeen fatigue since Henrik Sadeen had won the heart the year prior. And then the last point is Vancouver's penalty killed dips in the last 10 games because Mani Malhotra obviously sustains that significant eye injury against the Colorado Avalanche with 10 games to go in the season, sort of breaking up a third line that, you know,

had it been intact, I think would have made Vancouver more flawless, right? Like a much more difficult team to match up against, especially because of the way Vigno used that line during that 10-11 season, right? Not only were the Canucks sort of the first team to really be disciplined about zone matching, right? The Malhotro line started four defensive zone shifts for every one. They started in the offensive end. And that wasn't common at the time. Like other teams didn't employ that strategy yet. Now it's super common.

Everyone does it. But back then, the Canucks were kind of this. new thing. Like no one else started 70% of their shifts in the offensive zone like the twins did. Those sort of changes happened over time. You know, now, again, it's commonplace. But this Canucks team was cutting edge of that, despite all of that crazy usage. And, you know, Vinyo using Malhotra's line as a hard matching line at home and hunting

matchups for him on the road, which created an environment where Ryan Kessler, who actually wins the Selke trophy this season is actually playing mostly third tertiary comp and he goes off for 41 goals largely because of his work at the net front on the power play but also

because all of a sudden he's just destroying fourth lines at five on five and completely changed the way the Canucks were able to utilize the top end of their roster for all of that Malhotra's line outscored the opposition five on five had some pretty,

ugly, coursey four numbers, but at the end of the day, like they did their job. They changed the dynamic of how Vancouver could attack their opponents. And when Mahautra went down, the Canucks actually opened the playoffs with Raymond,

centering their third line. And by game, by game seven, they have Le Pierre on their fourth line alongside, I believe it's Hansen and it's not, and, yeah, right, and Higgins, it's not Torres.

And as a result, you've got Kessler, Taves, right? Kessler and Taves are battling one another. Boland comes back in game four and sort of turns the series on its head and he's the one sort of battling the twins in a hard match in game seven. Yes. I mean, the Mahocha loss was obviously hurt them for any number of reasons. It really allowed them to play the way they wanted to and really free up the city. And the one thing, though, is rewatching this game, that trio of LaPierre Higgins and Hansen were probably the most dangerous line in the entire game. I think they had probably like 10 great scoring chances. It was crazy

how they were buzzing during this game. But I guess that just speaks to the depth this Canucks team had where you could lose a key sort of linchpin player like that down the middle and just kind of bring someone else back up and have similar results. So yeah, I mean, let's get into what age the best then here. What do you what do you have first? In terms of what's age the best. I mean, it's got to be it's got to be the borough story. right like the borough story is why sports nets been criticized so hard for not having the patrick sharp backdoor chance and for not having the penalty shot goal because this game is the ultimate but for the grace of god go i game right so you've got camp holy on one side who you know

played pretty big minutes for chicago in this series an average 20 that year for chic for ottawa right like this is a guy who was a bona fide top four defender at the time. And, you know, granted, he was playing a third pair role for Chicago, but really they were rolling 5D in this series because Coach Kew didn't really trust Nick Letty ever during his Chicago tenure. So you've got Campoli on one side and you've got Burroughs on the other. And Burroughs, you know, obviously a controversial figure outside of Vancouver, widely beloved in this city.

And, you know, you've got. Burroughs scores the game opening goal, right? But he turns the puck over on the penalty kill that leads to the Jonathan Taves game tire. He says that he didn't back check hard enough. Like to this day, he thinks that that goal is his fault when he watches it on tape. He has a penalty shot opportunity in the third and takes what he considers to be the worst opportunity of his career. He takes what he calls, again, this is Burroughs' words. He calls it a lazy penalty in overtime that results.

and him being in the box when Patrick Sharp gets this great A, glorious chance backdoor that Luongo gets his blocker on. And then finally, there's this moment where, you know, Campoli miss flips it, Burroughs, skates, and alone. Most iconic goal in Canucks franchise history. But the line between being a goat for all time and being the dragon slayer is so fine, right? It's so narrow. And I think that's just worth remembering in sports. and especially for a guy like Campoli who's working for the PA now, insanely bright, you know, just a great conversation, sort of didn't, only played one more season and granted maybe his role in labor talks played a role in that too, but nonetheless, I think this moment sort of changed the trajectory of his career and it changed the trajectory of Burroughs' legacy in a meaningful way. But the fact is Burroughs could so easily have been in Campoli's shoes.

And that's just worth remembering when you talk about, think about sort of results versus process in hockey and everything that has to go into winning a game seven and overtime. Like, you know, but for the grace of God go Campoli and Burroughs. They're sort of united as two different sides of the coin here, but it's so easily, you could have been the reverse. He'll give it away. Campoli, gave it away. Burroughs walks in. Well, and there's a couple other key sort of crossroads moments here for Burroughs in this game where you mentioned, he, they're already up one nothing at this point.

It pretty much all happens in the third period. He misses the penalty shot. There's another sequence with like 12 minutes left where, and this is partly Henrik Siddeen's fault and him overpassing and sometimes, you know, preferring to do that rather than just take the easier shot route where he sort of surprises Burroughs on like an impromptu two on one and they don't wind up getting a shot on it because Burroughs isn't really ready for the pass, which I guess should be his fault considering he had spent so much time with Henrik Sidin and should know that a pass is probably coming at all.

times. There's another sequence here where he draws that penalty on Duncan Keith late in the game where he like comes in on a two on O basically with Kessler and he gets slashed or hooked by Keith from behind and draws a penalty, but he still has a clean look on net and he just winds up missing the net. And then obviously, you know, the events that you outlined with transpiring with the TAVE short-handed goal and then the penalty in overtime. What actually stuck out to me as well and it shouldn't be forgotten is in game six, the Blackhawks win that game. and overtime. But I think it was the goal that made it to one. Campoli turns the puck over to Burroughs in the slot for a goal. And it's like eerily similar to this game set overtime winner. And I don't

see that talked about enough because it was like, we're just rewatching that highlight. I was like, I don't even remember this sequence, but it's crazy how similar it looked to the goal in the next game. Yeah. And the Blackhawks had made a game plan of going flippy, high flip, out of their zone, especially if Patrick Cain is on the ice streaking down the wing. And, you know, that's what Campoli says he sees, right? He sees Patrick Cain making a run for it and he thinks if he can get this out of the zone high, there's at least a decent chance that they're going to get a two-on-one. And so I'm not surprised that it happened again.

I think if you go back in the series, you'll see a lot of Chicago defenders flipping it out. You'll see a couple of them batted down. Vancouver four checked hard in those situations. and Chicago, you know, believed that at least with their top line on the ice, they had the speed to punish Vancouver if they could get that high flip player, go off the wall. And so that was like a real dynamic that both teams were aware of and conscious of. And so, you know, it does show up a couple of times in this series in key moments. And obviously in the key moment that turns out to be the deciding overtime winner.

Yeah, I thought the broadcast did a really good job pointing that out throughout the game where the Canucks Forecheck was just in their, sort of space and limiting their ability to make kind of clean passes and clean decisions. And it stuck out to me. So before the game winner, there's this defensive zone draw. And Coach Kew brings out this makeshift combination of Kane Taves, Ryan Johnson, and his third D pair. And right before Campoli turns it over to Burroughs, Johnson actually does similar with pretty

much an identical play where he goes off the boards and out and turns it right over the Canucks. of doing anything they basically clear it back into his zone and then camp really makes his turnover but i think it was kind of this um accumulation throughout the game and maybe even series of what the canucks were doing to limit their time and space they kind of forced him to make what otherwise what looks like kind of like this boneheaded mistake because he does have time to do something i think it certainly was in the back of his mind kind of hearing those footsteps based on how the game had transpired to that point 100% and i think the yeah when you go watch so

It's a Ryan Kessler wrist shot designed to win the draw, right? Like that's all that Kessler's trying to do when he takes the shot that Crawford freezes, that leads to the makeshift sort of line that Q throws out just to be in responsible mode, clear the puck out of the zone, you know, not give up a goal here. And Vancouver never really touches the puck, but it's like 20 seconds of just them for checking and sort of keeping this stress on Chicago prior to the Kampoli mistake. And I think you're right. that's really crucial context to keep in mind.

They were probably not under duress, but they were certainly under fire for about certainly 15 and maybe 20 seconds prior to Burroughs sort of making that turnover happen. So what is the best for me was I mentioned the quality and depth of these teams. I think the defense in particular, it's funny. We're just talking about how Campoli made this mistake. But if you just go back and watch this, I mean, I think that top four for the Canucks with the Adler-Air-Hawf pairing and then Hamis Bias Bias, Exxon and even for the Blackhawks with Keith still in his prime here. They wind up making a decision at

some point because Seabrook does take that big hit from Torres and misses a couple games. He comes back in and they split that pairing up and they've got their sort of bottle feeding Nick Lettie a few minutes here or there, but we wind up finding out that he winds up having a nice career for the Islanders. He's playing with Keith. You've got that Campbell-Jallmersen pairing, which basically becomes their sort of shutdown pairing against the Siddeans in this series. And I just think the quality of the defensemen on both teams really stuck out to me when you watch today's game. And it feels like there's kind of a dearth of quality defensemen where at any point you're watching any two teams in the league and there's like four or five guys probably that shouldn't even be playing that are playing big minutes just because I feel like there aren't enough quality defensemen to go around for 31 teams. I think you're right.

And I think the fact is that these teams are both probably about five years ahead of their time in terms of that construction. And talking about the Canucks defense also reminds me of one sort of funny footnote to this series that I want to bring up just because it's amusing and tells you a lot about the 1011 Canucks, right? The 1011 Canucks were the team that Luongo, this is the first year of Luongo's mega extension, the one that has become the only contract for cap recapture in NHL history. And so Luongo's got a $10 million salary this season, but a $5.3 million cap hit. and that's kind of consistent throughout the Canucks lineup. Sammy Sallow in the summer gets injured playing floorball, right? Which allows the Canucks to put him on LTI. And right before Sammy Sallow returns, the Canucks opt for Alex Edler to undergo a, you know, back surgery.

It's a to fix a disc in his back. But it's very much a elective surgery. And he probably could have returned a little bit earlier. But obviously they needed him to be out of the long. lineup so that they could, you know, for cap reasons, wait until the cap was lifted in the playoffs and then reinsert Eidler into the lineup. And the Canucks, we now know. I don't think I've actually written this anywhere or talked about this, but I now know this. The Canucks wait. They hold Adler out of game one in the playoffs and reinsert him for game two simply to make sure that there's

no sort of raised eyebrows at the league's front office based on the chicanery that they've pulled in terms of the cap. But if Malhotra hadn't gotten hurt and obviously Samuelson gets hurt, he plays in this game on the line with the twins, but he doesn't make it through the next series against Nashville. But if those two hadn't gotten hurt, the Canucks would have had a 70 million in actual salary in a season with a $59.4 million cap hit for the playoffs.

And that's just sort of the extent to which the Canucks streamlined their, you know, cap hits to take an all-in-year-old. shot this season. And, you know, I think that's one thing to keep in mind. Obviously, they don't get there. They don't win the cup. But in terms of managing the business side of the game to take that one shot, I don't know that there's ever been a team that's done it better or more efficiently than this Vancouver team did. Well, and I don't think it's any coincidence that the team that probably does the most there in that department right now is the Leafs and the common thread there with Lawrence Gilman in terms of the sort of 4D chess with like moving money around and looking

for every single little cap advantage that you can with all those machinations. I think there's certainly something happening there as well. Yeah. No question. You know, so along the lines of the blue line, the most impressive players just physically, I think, from rewatching this series, especially now that we are almost a decade removed from it, and we've watched a bunch of these guys play in the meantime.

and certainly entered different points of their career and look different physically and even exit the league over the past couple of years. I think for me, the three guys that I was the most blown away by watching was one, Alex Edler, I think his mobility in this series and the hitting, I think, throughout, like, he gets Michael Froelik a couple times. There's one point where Patrick Haynes trying to exit the zone, I think, in game two of this series, and he has his head down and he's kind of reaching for the puck, and Edler just cleanly, absolutely destroys him.

And his ability to cover ground and still be that big body presence is like watching this version of him now, he's still effective. And he's been so crafty and he's found different ways through his shot blocking and such to remain in the league and eat up big minutes without losing that effectiveness. But it's just like an entirely different animal watching this 24 year old version prior to all of the injuries where he's just moving around so freely. Yeah. And he's smarter now, right? Like he's and he's meaner. He's meaner more consistently. right like those edler hits you're talking about on for a leak there's a famous one against drew doughty from the playoffs the year prior uh those were like moments that you saw from edler here and there but really he played the game like a skilled defender who was prone to the big mistake and and now you watch edler and edler is mean every game like he's a tough customer at the net front along the wall like he's a pain in the ass and he's so smart the big mistake like forget the big mistake there's no mistakes in his game and now though he's

reached this point in his career where two things from this past season that I think are worth noting. One is the Canucks took him off the power play to sort of limit his ice time. And he still ends up, I think it's 33 points. He ends up with 33 points in 57 games. He's 16th among all NHL defenders in points rate this past season, like narrowly behind Quinn Hughes, who obviously outscored him by a wide margin because he had 25 power play points. So Edlers continued to be offensively productive. The problem is, is that he's,

probably still Vancouver's best all-around defensemen, and that's a problem considering he's now 33. And if you look at the first 20 games of the season, right, Edler was like a 53% coursey-four guy while playing bona fide top number one D minutes. And if you look at the last 39 games, he's like a 45% coursey-four guy, even though he's playing a few less minutes because he's not playing on the power play. So they're at a point with him where when he's healthy at the start of, of the year. He's an unbelievably dynamic presence. The problem is, and as Vancouver becomes a team with credible playoff ambitions, which I think, you know, they're probably there. I mean, they outperformed their true talent level this season by a fair bit, but nonetheless, like,

they're going to need to figure out a way to make sure that they're getting that, like, how do you get October, Alex Edler, in April? Because that's going to be a key part for this team if they're ever going to win around. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of a C. in this game in particular. I think people's frustrations, maybe not even with Edler the player, but more so the team, like, if you think back to last year where everyone was clamoring for Quinn Hughes

to get on the top higher play, and instead we're just seeing Alex Edler just teeing off from the point with these low percentage shots. There's a lot of that in this game. I love the Canucks defense, and I love the aggression in particular. They're pinching like crazy.

They're trying to get in the play. There's numerous times throughout the series where BX is randomly around the net, and you're just like, why is a defenseman there? and I love that mentality or they were attack, attack, attack. But in this game, what really stuck out to me was there was so much, like, low to high play where they were just, it seemed like there, maybe it was what the Blackhawks were doing

defensively where they weren't allowing them anything else. But it was just a lot of low percentage point shots and just watching Edler tee off from the point in this game, I was like, oh, I've seen a lot of that over the years. Yeah. And, well, and look, I think of the other thing that's worth talking about is this Ham-Hus BX, a shutdown pair that the Canucks roll throughout the, this playoff series. Like if you were going to chart what sort of set this Canucks team apart from some of the

other iterations that didn't have as much playoff success, I think you have to start with B.X of Ham Hughes and then Kessler and Henrik, right? Like that mix gave them the down-the-middle fortitude, that one C-2C first pair D sort of players. And I know Edler plays more in this game, but nonetheless, like Bex and Hexon, Hamhuis are the pair hard matching against Chicago's best. They're mean, they're two-way. They play a really, really great game. And their contributions, not just in this game, but throughout this series and throughout this playoff run for the Canucks, was like a big, big part of what

permitted Vancouver to be as successful as they were. Well, and Hamus' stickwork in particular, like he just single-handedly neutralizes Patrick Kane, I think, especially in this game. You'd see how frustrated he was just trying to do his typical stuff where he's like dancing into the offensive zone with control and ham use is just stopping that and it's funny just to go back to the two prior series before hamuse came to Vancouver where they just had no answer for him whereas in this this I think he doesn't have a single five-on-five goal in this entire series and it was funny kind of going through that down the rabbit hole just looking back to that sort of summer before this where I think what the flyers and the penguins both trade for hamuse's rights to try to sign him and

then he winds up taking less than people were offering as the hometown discount and we saw his value to this team when he gets injured in the Stanley Cup final and isn't the same. And so that stuck out to me watching that where it was like, damn, he was so good during this time. Yeah, I call it Hamhusian here and there. And the guy who I notice do this the best in the NHL right now is Proverov in Philadelphia, in my opinion anyway. And the thing that you note is Dan Hamhuis, when you watch him in his prime, it's just like it's all angles and he like doesn't ever make the move he just keeps the player so uncomfortable that they sort of end up skating themselves into a non-dangerous area

along the wall and that's like he just does that repeatedly it's just like his gap is so disciplined that players play themselves quietly out of dangerous spots and he lets the other player just do that and proverov I noticed do it a fair bit uh you know I pointed it out um in an armies when the Canucks played the Flyers because it just stood out to me so significantly, but it's a very Ham Hussian quality that's actually pretty rare, especially as we've gotten to a point in the NHL where, you know, some of these offensive players are so fast that the idea of maintaining a gap on any of them is kind of a joke. So I mentioned Edler as the player who stuck out to me most physically impressive in terms

of the rewatch. I think Kessler as well with those long strides, I think the move he makes to set up the first Burroughs goal in this game where he's, he catches Keith off guard when they're shooting and it goes kind of in and out and just blows right past him out wide. I just forgot like how powerful those like that second of gear he could hit in those long strides and how much ground he could cover. And the other in a much more sort of cerebral opportunistic way was Patrick Sharp where it felt like throughout this, whenever he had the puck on his stick, you're like, oh God, something something dangerous is going to happen here. I think he has eight shots in this game. He's probably their most dangerous offensive player.

And, you know, he's on this second line with Marian Hosa and they're just wrecking as this series goes along and I've forgotten just kind of what a nightmare he was in the offensive zone. Yeah, no, 100%. Kessler's physical assertiveness is such an underrated part of what he brought. And a big reason why now, you know, he's retired, right? Like, he's retired. He's 33 and he has a, you know, hip replacement and on and on. Like, he had this hip surgery that essentially ended his career, not officially, but essentially. Yeah, he's catching the checks. Right, and he did it so that he could continue to walk and play with his kids, right?

Like, he's banged up and he's banged up because of the way that he played. It's a lot of fun to watch. Like, he was a lot of fun to watch just because of how, you know, he had this speed-sized combo and a complete and absolute fearlessness on the ice. It was tremendous. And then to touch on Hosa further, I think Hosa, like, my analogy for Hosa is, you know, when you play Mario Party or Mario Mario tennis and you've got the big guys and you've got the fast guys and then you've

got Mario who can do a little bit of everything. Like that's Marion Hosa. And Hosa was also reputed to watch like a crazy amount of video. And I used to informally in my head sort of subject defensemen on the Canucks to the Marion Hosa test, which was how did Marian Hosa play that defender one on the rush? So with Christian Aarhoff, he was big enough that he'd always put his shoulder in and try and take him wide with a power move. And with like Andrew Alberts or someone, he'd go into the corner and be like, I can beat you there. Right.

And so the Marian Hosa test was something to watch. Something that I just always sort of like jokingly made up and tracked myself because it was like how Marian Hosa thinks he can beat you. How Marian Hosa thinks you can be beat is the way that you can be beat. I trust him more than I trust any coach, analyst, or broadcaster. Take what he does and treat that as gospel. Well, and I think the broadcasters throughout this series make a point of attributing the reason why I turned around to Dave Boland coming back in game four and completely shifting it and annoying the cityans. And there's certainly a part of that, but I think in just the rewatch, you know, when the Canucks go up three nothing in game four in Chicago, the Blackhawks wind up winning pretty routinely. And everyone sort of chalks it up to what's kind of like a.

at one final stand at home. The Connox will take care of business in game five. And I think on like the first shift of the game, Jim Houston saying in game five, like, oh, Marian Hosa hasn't scored it in this series and he just scores a goal. And then he has another breakaway after that. In game six on the overtime winner by Ben Smith, he basically single-handedly, which uses his frame to get the puck into the offensive zone and create that opportunity for him. And it was like him sort of asserting himself and doing Marian Hosa things is also, I think, a big reason why this series wound up getting so tight towards the end in game seven. Yeah, you're right.

The Boland impact, look, the fact is, though, as both guys, like guys on both teams believe in it, right? Like, they all think that Dave Boland changed the series. So, you know, I can't sort of override it. But look, the twins dominated when Boland was on the ice throughout this series. It's just that all of a sudden, Chicago started getting every save and the Canucks sort of stopped finishing, right? Like, they didn't have, even in this game, a ton of offense,

the way out, right? Like they were winning the games early in the series by a relatively wide margin. And all of a sudden, with the exception of the first game that Boland comes back in, Vancouver scores three and still loses. Like Vancouver scores one, two, two, right? They score five goals going away. And I just tend to think that that's finishing luck, because when you look at the underlying sort of numbers in this game anyway,

like Boland plays 1034 against Henrik Sidin head to head. And the Canucks out shoot the Blackhawks 7-1 in those minutes, 7-3 by scoring chances. Like, to me, that's not a sign that Bolins completely shut them down. That, to me, anyway, is a sign that, you know, Corey Crawford had what might have been the game of his life. Yeah, we're going to get more into Corey Crawford in a second. I think a couple other things that I had, what age the best was, and we've sort of touched on it, but tangentially, but just how all the key players in this game are

either in their prime or close enough to it and it speaks to the quality of it. It was interesting going back and thinking about this. I think what age the best was just the entire process of the previous summer. The sharks offered shooting Nicholas Jalmers. I remember at the time thinking four years, 14 million for him was a bit pricey. And he winds up playing a huge shutdown role in this series and obviously winds up having a great career as one of the sort of most talked about defensive defenseman shutdown guys in the league. But I love that sequence because the sharks, and we so rarely see it and

bemoaned, the teams are unwilling to do that, is they're this Western Conference rival with the Blackhawks, and they see this opportunity to strike, and they basically offer Shee Jalmersson, knowing that the Blackhawks will probably retain them. But then that handcuffs them, and they wind up just stealing Antony Emmy for $2 million because Blackhawks now can't afford to financially keep them. And it just brings me back to this past summer where the Blackhawks were in the similar, or the sharks were in a similar spot financially where they had guys like LeBank and Timo Myers, RFA's, and I was like, please, someone just offer sheet both guys and steal one of them for way below market value. And the sharks just wind up getting away with it. And it's funny to look

back at now where people talk about, oh, offer sheets don't work. You know, they didn't get Nicholas Jomers. And it's like, it was part one of a two-step process where it clearly wound up working out for the sharks. And I'd love to see more of that. Well, and they weakened arrival and caused Chicago to make even more difficult decisions than they'd already had to make. And so, no, I agree with you. That was a lot of fun. And we just haven't seen a ton of it, right? Kudos to Doug Wilson.

I just wish it happened more. The idea that the idea that offer sheets don't work is compelling, right? Like, teams, players don't change teams very often that way. But, you know, when people point out to me that they don't think offer sheets work, and we talk about this sort of 2010-11 Canucks team and the management behind it. Like they offer sheeted David Backus, right? They actually came into this sort of considering that offer sheets could be used more creatively. I know they got pretty close to potentially doing a series of one-year offer sheets or one-year deals for Jordy Ben.

They had this idea that they signed, sorry, Jamie Ben, yeah. to one year offer sheets for four years, just walk him to the UFA so they could get him. And, you know, it's known too that they met with Shea Weber before Shea Weber signed his offer sheet with Philadelphia. Yeah. But by that point, they actually didn't believe that Nashville, like, they thought Nashville had to protect their market. They thought that any Weber offer sheet would be matched no matter how toxic you made it. And that, I think, proved true. And so they met with Weber and said, look, we can't, though.

only way we can get you is if you, um, you know, don't sign. Like if you, if you take a one year deal, um, if you sign an offer sheet with us, you're not going to end up in Vancouver. So, but it's a similar, I think you, you think about offer sheets from the team side often, but I think from a player side, just reading about that in hindsight, it seemed like Jalmersen wanted to stay in Chicago, but he also wanted his money up front. And so he basically used the sharks to get what he wanted and it wound up working out for him. And it reminded me of what Sebastian Ajo did this. year where he kind of got his cake and eat it too, where he gets the habs to sign him to this offer sheet forces the hurricane's hand to pay him right now, but also becomes a UFA when

he can get paid again. And so it's funny from a player perspective, which we rarely talk about with offer sheets. Yeah. And I think, again, the fact of the matter is, is the idea that offer sheets don't work is compelling, but we also haven't seen them used efficiently enough, widely enough, to have the data set to conclude that they couldn't be effective in an environment. where teams were properly competing with one another for the services of second and third contract guys.

The last, what age the best I had was just this general sort of the storyline of this rivalry and the Canucks embracing the heel turn and the jerk puck era and all of Canada turning on them and the league. It was funny watching this game, I'd forgotten that Mike Gillis goes on this rant after game six about how they're being officiated and how I think the penalty. were like 27 to 16 or something for the series in favor of the Blackhawks and how they felt like you know the league had turned on them because they had been viewed as the villain and so i just i love that that story and that additional layer of um the team just embracing kind of what made them

special and also it just feeding into this rivalry where these two teams really really did not like each other yeah and i think jason botchford the late jason botchford told told this story and you know i i've I've never had it confirmed beyond sort of Botchford's story, but there's apparently a story that, you know, as, as you'd expect of that 1011 Canucks management group, they went to the rulebook, they went to the bylaws and they were like, what can we say that will for sure get us fine to take some pressure off the players? And that sort of led to Gillis's rant. The other thing I think we do have to discuss, because it's so crazy. Like this game only happened, or this series only happened nine years ago, but at one point in this series, series, Rafi Torres absolutely trucks. Yep, behind the net.

Brent Seabrook behind the net. And it's clearly a suspendable hit, like so very obviously. And Rafi Torres had also been suspended for the first two games of the series for a questionable hit on Jordan Eberley, right? So that's the context here. Like this guy just got suspended. There was a clearly suspendable hit on Brent Seabrook behind the net. Chicago's furious apopleptic.

And the league. rules that in fact the hit is not suspendable because it happened in the killing zone like the killing zone which is a term that no one has ever used in the sport of hockey except for this and no one has ever used since probably because nchel concussion lawyers were like pulling at their callers being like what are you doing the killing but it's just this moment in time where the league justified this clearly heinous hit as being fine because of the location that it occurred on the ice, the killing zone. It's just wild. Like that is, that, that to me is like, you might as well have people smoking in the stands or like media filing stories, you know, on typewriters and then

faxing them in. Like, it's just nuts that that happened this, you know, in the decade we just exited, you know, not counting the decade that is the month of March. Well, especially when you watch this series where it's played in a pretty modern fashion, I think, right? Like we talked about how the teams were five or six years ahead of their peers at this time. Like it's weird to line that up with how the game's actually being played because it's not like you've got a bit of John Scott in this series and you know, you have Tanner Glass. But for the whole part, these are two pretty skill teams playing at a high pace. It's not like when I did the 2013 Leifes Bruin series where they've got like Fraser

McLaren and Colton Ore out there. It's right. So it's weird. Definitely. There's a dichotony there. John Scott at the net front of PP1 for the first two. games of the series, by the way, like, come on. We'll get into John Scott.

What age the worst? Here's one that I had rewatching this. How many borderline plays, and this might be a personal thing, but just rewatching it, like how many times a team enters the offensive zone? And I'm like, ooh, that was very close to being offside. And I feel like I've been just so conditioned now over the past couple of years with the challenges and with the review where it's like when you watch NFL these days. and you have a successful passing play,

and then you're just waiting to see if a flag pops up that's going to wind up calling it back. There were so many plays in this game where I was like, I think that probably could have been offside. It doesn't wind up being a goal, so it doesn't matter. But it just, it's totally changed my viewing experience and frame of mind going back and watching these games. I agree with you 100%.

And also I find, like, I have a pretty good eye for the game. I've watched it so often, and I know you do too. And I find when the playoffs roll around, and there's a close entry, right? Now, now that I know that it's going to come back, if it is in fact offside, I can't enjoy what happens, right? Like, it kind of ruins the incentives for me as a viewer,

just like as an enjoyer of hockey because I know that whatever just happened might be nullified. And I find that deeply unenjoyable, right? Like, I actually hate the review apparatus. Like, I don't think VAR improves soccer. I don't think reviews improve hockey. I don't care that much if we're right or wrong so long as it's not completely ridiculous,

like that one Matt DeShane example. Basically, I think reviews should be rarer than they are. And I think the idea of a play being on side or offside by a millimeter doesn't matter. And the way that we currently do it with reviews is, you know, abysmal. But I agree with you. That does age badly. I also think just the volume of point shots that you see, you know, you already commented on it. but on the power play especially, right?

Ever since sort of that Columbus power play with Zach Werensky and Sam Gagne up top, right? Like teams are so much more efficient about where they're shooting from, five on four. And if you watch this series, there's just so many point blasts. Here's what age is the worst. Taves versus Crosby debates.

Oh, God. This was, I think, a couple years before the peak of it, I think, after the Blackhawks won the 2013. title. There was much more of it. But I remember at this time, it was starting to percolate, especially after Crosby had his concussions and the penguins had a few early playoff exits, whereas the Blackhawks were playing late into spring every year. And this was, I know it sounds ridiculous now, but I do remember at the time, there were like legitimate people who are paid for their hockey opinions that were unironically suggesting that Jonathan Taze was a better player. To the point, to the

where Mark Specter in 2014 has an article where he says that he pulled four out of five NHL scouts and they told him that they would choose Taves to build around because he worked harder and his team has had more success. I mean, this is the same person that brought us the 200 hockey men, so I'm not sure if the five scouts actually got pulled for this story, but this was like a thing that, and people online were ridiculing it at the time, but I think it was a much more pervasive opinion than you'd like to believe this many years out. No question.

And all of that said, the Taves game-tying goal here is as willful, right, a goal as you'll ever see in hockey. Like that was as, you know, clutch, as impressive, as unlikely, like, as heroic, frankly, as anything that I've seen an individual hockey player do in a high-stakes game in my time watching NHL hockey. If the Blackhawks win that game, that Tave's goal is like, you know, a postage stamp in the state of Illinois. Like, it is that impressive. And, you know, I don't think it's remembered. I think Blackhawks fans maybe remember it. I think there's some people who do. Canucks fans certainly remember it as the low point of their fandom.

But the fact of the matter is that that play was so spectacular, so unlikely, such a remarkable individual effort that it should be remembered. more widely than it is, and it's just unfortunate, I mean, it's just unfortunate for Taves anyway, that this goal that could be the signature play of his career ends up sort of, you know, falling by the wayside just because his team doesn't win. And he's pretty quiet in the series. I think a lot of it has to do with him and Kessler certainly kind of canceling each other out, but, you know, I agree with it. That's his first goal in the series.

Jonathan Taves for Chicago tries to make it happen. Here's Hosa. It's a great. individual effort and listen if he gets 449 points in his next 41 games he'll match sydney crosbie for his career and uh i think i think he could do it i mean he's got 41 games in hand so it's a lot of points but um he's a good player so we'll see i think uh the canucks handling of goalies i don't yeah i mean it's it's tough because just kind of going back to it i remember at the time it was obviously a hot topic and and how it wound up playing out

with them winding up trading both guys and you know they're kind of having this uh this low point before jacob marksstrom obviously becomes what he has or the past year and a half but just rewatching these games i thought in particular like games one and three roberto longo was outstanding and i thought athletically he was ridiculous like he was stretching out and making these crazy uh lateral side-to-side saves obviously game four and five things unraveling he gets pulled in both but just diving back into this world and and and and a decision to start Corey Schneider in Game 6 after the year Roberto Luongo had had, and then he gets injured on the penalty shot, and then they have to go back to Longo in Game 7,

and he's really good. Just all of that, it was like, it feels like another lifetime ago. Yeah, it does. And I think this also started, this was the first series that Vancouver flopped goalies in the decade. But as it played out, there was never another series that Canucks played, where a goaltending controversy didn't essentially undermine them, right? Like the King series, they go away from Longo, the San Jose Sharks series, they again go away from Longo.

And then the 14-15 season, they go away from Eddie Lack, who really carried them to the playoffs with like a 9-25 say percentage in the last 25 games, which I only remember because he just retired. So I looked it up yesterday. And play Ryan Miller in game six. Ryan Miller just can't get post-to-post. like Miller was a really good goalie in his time in Vancouver, but he just wasn't right. And the flames eliminate a 3-0 Canucks lead in a decisive game six. You know, and that was sort of the last time the Canucks were in the playoffs.

So, you know, I do, I agree with you. I think this does in a lot of ways sort of chart the path forward for a Canucks team that, you know, I think did ultimately mismanage that situation. although, you know, now that we've had five years hence, you look back and they got Markstrom, who was a bona fide NHL starter and a high-end NHL starter based on his performance of the last two years, and Bo Horvatt, who's a 60-point second-line center. I mean, that's not a bad return for those two players, but you certainly do wonder if, for example, if the Canucks had been able to make Corey Schneider the centerpiece of a Jeff Carter deal in 2012,

right, with Columbus, who were looking for goaltenders and ended up trading for Sergey Brobrovsky, a situation that worked out pretty well for them. You know, you certainly do wonder if maybe there was more that the Canucks could have done if they'd just sort of ridden with Luongo and been a little more comfortable with that scenario throughout this sort of time, Bram. Well, I wonder if it just, unfortunately for them, they just came around too early because in the landscape of then HL at this point in time, it was still very much a workhorse number one guy who starts 60, 65 games,

and then kind of your more traditional veteran backup to the point where the Canucks for years have like Andrew Raycroft and various veteran backups in lieu of Corey Schneider being up there at this point this year. He plays 25 games. He's ridiculous. He's a 927 percentage, but he's already 25 years old at this point in time. And it felt like,

every time Schneider would play, it was kind of like a slap in the face to Lwongo where it's like, he's earned this, he's the number one, he should be playing more. Whereas I think if in 2020, ideally you would just be like both guys are going to play 40-ish games because a lot of teams are doing, I think it's much easier to justify in the room just because it's so much more of a regular common occurrence around the league. And it's not sort of intended to be an insult to a number one goalie. So I wonder if it would have been more accepted or if, you know, just because of Lulongo's it never would have been a situation where they could have accommodated it.

I think this is a really good point and one that at some point, probably during this lockdown because I've got some time on my hands, I may revisit at greater length because I do think Luongo's career would be looked at so much differently if he had been managed the way a modern goaltender is. And Luongo's longevity is unrivaled, right? Like literally the guy, one of three goalies, to play a thousand games, you know, played it in an era that's more demanding for goaltenders. Like the other guys who've done it, I mean, Patrick Woe was the other butterfly goalie,

but like, you know, Brodard never tested it as hips quite as strenuously as a guy like Luongo did over the course of his career, for example. But, you know, Lou, for example, the year that he was a heart candidate in Vancouver played 76 regular season games. Like he was at 90 games for the season by the time they ended up. in the second round, you know, with Luongo, he, he ends up sort of at that 80 plus mark by, you know, the Stanley Cup final. And all of a sudden, you've got this goaltender who's either going to be lights out or not good enough, right? Like, and that's sort of what you saw from Lou in the,

in the Stanley Cup final. He was either getting a shutout or he was, you know, getting lit up. And I do wonder how much sort of, you know, the load that he carried throughout the season impacted that. know, Vancouver already was, you know, at a 60, 22 split by the time you get to 10-11. But you do certainly think that he, they would have been more in like a Tuka-ask Dobby kind of management platoon where Lou played max 50 if this team plays sort of 10 years on. And what would that have meant for how Luongo would have looked in June? You know, we'll never know. But I think for me anyway, that's a, that's a big all-time what if.

Well, not only does he have that 76 game season in his first year with the, Canucks, but it's a four-year stretch where he has 72, 75, 76, and 73 games in those four years. And looking back at it, it's funny because one of my unanswerable questions was like, why was Roberto Luong's career so polarizing? And throughout this series, and you can hear it in this broadcast when they're previewing it, it feels like it's all in his shoulders where he's got to prove himself and he's got to kind of rid these demons that the Blackhawks had had instilled upon him over the past couple years. He's been pulled twice in this series, but he was remarkable in this season in those 60 games. I think he was top five and goals saved above expected.

And just throughout his career, just end the longevity, but also the peaks. That 0304 season before the lockout while he's still with the Panthers, he's got this 931 save percentage in 72 games. And it was funny to look back at it now because I think he winds up being second in Vesna voting and Broder winds up winning it. And it's largely because the Panthers somehow, despite that 931 save percentage go 28, 35, and 19. and they're leading the league in goals again and shots against um i think they're averaging 35 shots against per game the devils and broderer wins the venezna this year are 24 shots against per game um he he faces 500 more shots than literally any other goal in the league i think second

was marked in he on the uh on the blue jackets and it was just obscene and he had that a couple times throughout his career i think he finished top four in venezna voting four or five times and And, you know, he doesn't really have any of that hardware beyond the Olympic gold medal. But it was just like revisiting all this and his career in totality, but especially at this time when he was so good. And the conversation or the discourse was always about whether he was good enough. And it seems now we've had a bit of distance from his career. So it just seems so silly now. But this was like a legitimate topic of conversation at this time.

Well, your friend in mine, Kevin Woodley, has a great story about Luongo after winning the gold medal. and he goes and does a couple, like, rights holder interviews or whatever, and then walks past the mix zone, and he sees Kevin, and this is a long ago, like right after he's won gold, right? Like, to this point in his career,

the most, you know, the biggest win, he's, you know, started for a team that won the gold medal on home ice in the city that he plays for professionally, right? Like, just as cool a moment as you're going to get as a pro athlete, and he walks through the mix zone

and sees Woodley and just says, you'll never guess what they asked me. Everything they wanted to talk about was the game-tying goal and how I'd skirt it up. And it's like, yeah, that was the conversation around Lou. From the bathroom break to, you know, that hat trick that Patrick Kane, like, scored that we've already talked about. But that's a 7-5 loss for the Canucks, right? To the Blackhawks that season.

There was beginning to be this narrative around Lou that he got the yips. And, you know, for me anyway, I think that was unfair. I still think that's unfair. I tend to think that if Luongo had been rested a little bit differently, you would have seen a very different playoff track record. And even with all of what we're talking about, I believe Roberto Luongo's playoff safe percentage is like maybe, maybe two percentage points below his regular season save percentage for his career,

which is roughly what you'd expect from a guy who, you know, faces better shooters once you get to the postseason, right? He has a 9-19-safe percentage for his regular season career and a 9-18-sate percentage for his playoff career. So indistinguishable. Just consistency,

overall large period of time with highs and lows, certainly, but I think that's much more about the position than it is some sort of fatal flaw of his character or his play. All right, do you have any other what age the worst,

or do you want to move into sort of the turning point in the most rewatchable sequences? Yeah, let's move in. I mean, clearly, you know, the final couple minutes of regulation, the Canucks have a couple chances to go up to nothing, and then it flips with the short-handed goal by Taves. I'd say that entire sequence is clearly sort of the turning point, or when this game really

reaches its peaks in terms of drama and just like entertainment value. Is there like a specific point? If, you know, viewers don't want to for every reason go back and watch this full game, like when should they tune in? Yeah, I'd say, what, 12 minutes to go in the third is about when Burroughs gets the penalty shot, right? And so I would go from, I would go from there and just watch the rest of it. Because by that point, you can cut the tension with the knife.

You get the, you know, Canucks getting a few late chances. I mean, here's the other thing that people don't remember is like the Canucks were up one nothing and probably played the best period that 1011 team played at any point in the second period, right? The second period is when that Le Pierre line starts to assert itself and get all these chances. The Cydines are just spending shift after shift in the offensive end. That Kessler line is buzzing, creating havoc. That second period was a championship caliber second period. And Corey Crawford is just stopping puck after puck after puck, like playing so, so well.

And they can't break through it. And so, I mean, that second period stands out to me. But I do think once you get to that Burroughs penalty shot, you get all of the drama. in a pretty tight sort of band of time, like 20 minutes on the game clock, probably 35 minutes to watch it if you have no commercials. And, you know, you get that Tave's goal, that unbelievable play from, you know, one of the great winners. Not one of the best players, but one of the great winners of the last decade of hockey. And, you know, you get that overtime sequence and, you know, the history that's made with Burroughs and Campoli there. Yeah, in the rewatch, that saved by Luongo, which Sportsnet omitted in their rewatch with that save, I mean, especially now, like, with all the sort of numbers we've had to quantify where teams are actively doing that sort of behind the net, passing it out front because the goalie can't see where the box's going, he doesn't have time to react that bang, bang play. It's such a common scoring play in today's game.

And Taves makes that perfect pass out from behind the net to sharp, and he's just point blank wide open, like a minute into over. time and part of it was the puck was balancing and I think he didn't get cleanly to it part of it was just sort of this instinctual athletic saved by loango but just that that moment it was like it felt like time stopped for a second and the fact that he saved that was just remarkable so again i've been fortunate enough to talk to every single guy uh involved in this play about it baxa thinks he was too aggressive um in lying down on the ice as he did to deny the pass he thinks you know, you're going to surrender great A's, but that was probably too good a chance to surrender at that point.

He just wanted to make Taves take a second and not go back door, like not do a stuff play on Lou, which was something that they'd done pretty regularly. Taves thinks that BXA lying in the ice, the way that he did caused him to take a sec, that usually he could make a cleaner pass to Sharpie for the back, sorry, to Patrick Sharp for the backdoor shot, but that he had to skis.

skate around BXN, it gave Lou an extra second and also took away any need for Luongo to cheat short side. Sharp says that he never felt at any moment in that sequence like he had the game on his stick. He thought he had a good chance. And if he shot it high, you never know if it can go, you know, through a guy's arm. But he thought based on what he was looking at, that Lou would have a good chance to make the push and get across, Luongo never saw Sharp. He just knew that he'd be there, and he thinks he was fortunate to get his blocker on it

because those are such dangerous plays, even when you have the time that you're comfortable, you're going to get the push to make it. So it's sort of interesting when you, you know, it's a play that I've rewatched 10 times. And even to this day, all of the four main characters involved in it don't exactly agree on sort of how it went down, how it could have gone differently. you know the the offensive players like man i did everything i could to get it there but the defender played it well the defender's just like man i still gave up too good a chance the shooter's like i never felt like i had it for sure and the goaltender thinks he was lucky so i mean it just sort of a nice

a nice amalgamation when you sort of summarize those opinions um you know that sort of points you in the same direction that so much of the rest of our conversation is gone which is when you get into a single game elimination, you know, contest between two pretty evenly matched teams, like randomness and luck matter so much, despite our, you know, instinct to ascribe morality and all this other things to the results. Yeah. I think in hindsight, I'm pretty vocal about my rule of thumb defensemen should not leave their feet. So I don't know. I disagree with BX's game plan there, but even on the, even on the penalty kill? I mean, there's certainly a time in place for it. I just think in general, like, you are leaving stuff up to chance,

much more opening different avenues for them to attack. I don't know. I just generally do. I think teams are moving in that direction very rapidly. It's one thing I noticed now in preseason is you'll see guys trying to make the team sell out to block shots. And you just don't, you just don't see a lot of guys go yard sale in the NHL anymore. Generally speaking, guys are on their skates and that's for the reason that you've sort of suggested, which is that, you know, also in a sport where you're always attacking and defending at the same time symmetrically, you know, losing your ability to quickly gather the puck in transition is a pretty significant downside. Yep. All right. Biggest heat check performance. Is there anyone who really stuck out to this?

I mean, I think Alex Burroughs plays too big of a role on this team for it to be kind of a heat check, obviously him scoring both goals, but is there any kind of like surprising performances in this that just blew you away on the rewatch? Well, look, I think I've got to give it to Kessler. When I think about Kessler's game and how he played and the fact that he was matched up against Jonathan Taves and the fact that without Mani Malhotra in the lineup, he starts 14 times in the defensive end and only four in his own end. Nonetheless, the Canucks have a 56% shot attempt share, 55% shot share on ice for two goals, four, zero against his, you know,

skating ability, his forechecking really stands out throughout the game. Like, you know, to use a bad analogy, I think that Kessler essentially pitched like a nine-inning shutout, right? If he were a pitcher in terms of the quality of the two-way game that he played. So usually he check would obviously, sort of correlate to offensive generation, scoring. No percentage benefit for Kessler here, but just in terms of the way that he assertively tilted the ice in the toughest matchup,

you know, I think this is as good a two-way game as you're going to see any player play in hockey at this level. That's what Kessler turned in in this game. It was essentially a perfect game. My biggest heat check performance is Corey Crawford. I know it wasn't a losing effort, but I remember that. at this time having a bit of skepticism, and I think it was justified about how good Corey Crawford actually was.

You know, similar to Corey Schneider we talked about, like, he marinated in the HL for a long time. I think he was there for like four or five full seasons. He's already 26 or 27 years old by this point. He's a rookie in this season. And they handed over the keys to him after Antianemi left in free agency. And I think people around the league and myself included were wondering about how good he actually was versus whether his success was just purely playing behind this really awesome team. And after a slow start to this series, in game four, he stops 21 to 23.

In game five, he's got this 36 save shutout. In game 6, 32 of 35, and in this game, he stops 36 of 38. But the Canucks had, I don't know how many sort of great A glory scoring chances. Natural Static has it at 2211 for the Canucks in this game. it easily could have been four nothing or five nothing at one point in the second period and he was just remarkable so I think like he proved a lot to me and obviously he wound up having a really really strong career and asserting that he wasn't just the system of the team that he was actually just a really good goal in his own right but this was sort of this game in particular was the time

where I really had my eyes open to the fact that he was just a really good goalie no question and I think so Corey Crawford is notorious for not remembering specifics when it comes to games and when I was trying to talk to Blackhawks players about this series the team was early in the year anyway

losing a lot and they are a proud group they're a group that expects to contend for a championship and when you think about what it's like for a team that was at the absolute summit of the sport to gradually fall into also-ran status. Like your day-to-day is not different. It's just the results.

And if you still think you're who you were and all athletes do, like it's a really frustrating experience. So it was really hard for me to get Blackhawks players to talk about this series. Like I really appreciated that Taves and Kane did. You know, and they were both really good sports. And I think they were happy to sort of relive their glory days. But I wasn't able to get Keith. I wasn't able to get Seabrook.

And in Corey Crawford's case, I wasn't able to get him, but I really did want the goaltender's perspective on the OT winner. So I asked Mark Lazarus of the Athletic Chicago to talk to Crawford, and I gave him a list of questions. And so he goes to Crawford, and Crawford can't remember a single thing. And then he says, you know, what do you remember about the moments after the goal it gets scored itself? And Crawford told Laz, you know, and I've got the transcript somewhere. but Crawford tells Laz, is this guy trying to start a fight? Which was probably the best quote that I got that I couldn't use. But yeah, Cory Crawford didn't remember a single thing about it.

This was an epic, epic performance from him. I think this game, you know, on sort of balance could have been a lot more lopsided than it actually was. And, you know, if you go back and unfortunately there's no expected goals, for us to check on. But the Canucks generate 40 scoring chances and 22 high danger chances to 23 scoring chances for Chicago and 11 high danger. So, I mean, I think that I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that the fact that this was a 2-1 Canucks victory in overtime, you know, is a big credit to the quality

of Crawford's performance. The most that guy. There's actually quite a few choices for two teams that. There's only one right choice, right? Is it John Scott? He doesn't play in this game, but... No, I mean, I don't think so. Like, well, look, it's probably got to be Ryan Johnson, right?

Because Ryan Johnson was on both sides of this battle. Like, Ryan Johnson's the only guy to have lost in the Chicago... Ryan Johnson's the only player to play in all three Chicago-Vankover playoff series and lose each time. Yep. So Ryan Johnson's got to be a strong contender, but certainly number one, with a bullet, has got to be Victor Orescovich, right? Yeah, I mean, I had him on my list. I had a couple, I had one name in particular above him. But Pissani?

Yeah, it has to be. I mean, he plays 559 in this game. So, okay, in the 06 playoffs for the Oilers, he has 14 goals on 49 shots. He leads the league in posies and scoring. He gets his $10 million deal this summer, and he never tops 14 goals again in his career. Like in aggregate. Yeah. No, no.

He had a couple years with like 13 goals, I think. But he never topped that postseason mark of 14 again. Yeah, tremendous. So he was like Brian Bickle before Brian Bickle was Brian Bickle. Yeah. And before people understood the shooting percentage, it was a thing. Yeah. So now he's got millions of dollars buried in his backyard as a result of Dwayne Rollison's

excellent playoff performance that's tremendous i think i also had tanner glass just because of al and vigno's inexplicable fascination with him and then he winds up going to new york and exposes a whole new fan base to disliking him um so you know that's that's notable i think johns got it i i had a great career he made money certainly playing he made 10 million yeah no tander glass i got time for tanner glass plus uh you know he was probably vancouver's best fourth liner which says you a lot about Vancouver's fourth line. John Scott, I mentioned him 2016 and All-Star Game MEP. He doesn't play in this game. He suits up for four games in the series and plays 25 minutes and completely sticks out like a sore thumb. But really nice guy. I think in the summer of

2016, I actually was in Toronto doing some sports and that stuff and had some beers with him and he was incredibly nice. He said my beard was better than Brent Burns is. And I'll always have time for him in my books. Wow. So a great guy, not super honest. No. Big time liar, a lie to my face. But yeah, no, definitely based on his impact in this series, I did not see him as a future All-Star MVP. Very glad it happened. As for Brent Burns,

I still miss his rebel yell on the forecheck. You know, a true shame that Bob Boogner has insisted on playing him on the back end when so clearly we need him turned loose on the forecheck where he is the funniest player to watch in the history of the sport. Any unanswerable questions? I feel like we've kind of like vaguely touched on a bunch of them so far, but is there anything that stuck out to you from rewatching this

where like we were just left wondering what happened or why something happened? I think this might be a weird fit for this just because I feel like I've talked to everyone about the series. Like I don't think there's anything that I don't know about this series that I really wanted to know. I feel like we have a really good understanding of what went on and why. You know, and I think the sort of only thing that I don't think the Canucks are truly honest about is they remain to a man, you know, convinced that that overtime intermission, the intermission before overtime, that there was a quiet calm and confidence in the locker room. And I just find that impossible to believe.

Like I just don't think that anyone's willing to be honest about how they actually felt. I find it really difficult to imagine that they weren't shook a bit by what it occurred. Shook, I think I'd buy it just from the perspective of they were clearly the better team in this game. So I think there was like something to draw for that. But certainly when it comes down to the fact that the next goal wins the series, I imagine there was quite a bit of tension. I had, was there a more underrated player of his era than Brian Campbell? No. and by the way, Brian Campbell,

Brian Campbell and Quinn Hughes. Like, if you don't see the similarities there, I don't know what to tell you. Like, people like to drop other comps for Quinn Hughes. I think Quinn Hughes might be a better offensive player over the life of his career. But, man, I find it, it's like watching the Ghost Racer in Mario Kart.

Like, watching Quinn Hughes play, having watched sort of late career Brian Campbell, I just find it an uncanny similarity. Yeah, I mean, from 06 to 2016, he basically checked every single box that I want from my defenseman, just played 82 games every time. The team was always better with them on the ice. He logged big minutes, but never took penalties.

In this series, he's playing the shutdown role with Nicholas Jalmers. I know most people think in hindsight that it was like Keith and Seabrook, but it wasn't. He's got 50-point seasons with three different teams during a decade. It just, like, he was just an absolute monster, and he was really, really good in this series. I think the other one is what the hell happened to Christian Air Hoff. Well, head injuries, right?

Yes. First of all, first of all, he chased the money in Buffalo and he made a lot of it, right? Like, I think that's one of the most, that was the very early, like, let's get really good, really fast, Pugula era where they made a ton of mistakes, including the Villaleno deal. But the Air Hoff contract paid him just an outrageous amount front-loaded, right? Because this was before, like, when you could sign guys to ridiculous deals. So yeah, Christian Erhoff had made 18 million over the life of his, over the first two years of his contract, made another $4 million in the third year, and it was bought out thereafter.

I mean, just an absolute steal. But look, Erhoff played at a Norris level for those two years in Buffalo. That team was just completely horrendous when he wasn't on the ice. They were like a 60% coursey team with him on the ice and something like a 40% course. I've almost never seen an on-ice impact as dramatic as what Earhoff had in the lockout shortened 12-13 season. I think that, you know, he was still a tremendous player before the head injuries kind of took their toll. And, you know, I do think that like when you think about that, and it's not just the playoffs. Like, it's just not.

When you think about how aesthetically pleasing that 10-11 team was and compare it with the 1213 version, like, or sorry, the 11-12. version like the 11-12 president's trophy winning Canucks were joyless and I think losing that sort of nitrous push that Erhoff gave them from the back end really really fundamentally changed the equation for how that team played yeah perfect player on the perfect team this season he's what plays 250 plus power play minutes with the Cidines like he's playing in kind of you know cushier deployment with their with Adler at 515 and then he basically winds up going in his most common partners the following season are Jordan Leopold, Mark Andrea Garniani, and Alex Salzer. So I think that kind of says it all. And, you know, listen, he got paid 40 million and he's

going to be making what, 900K or so every year until 2028. So not quite Bobby Bonilla, but I think it wound up working out for him as well. So it's all as well priorities, I guess. Last thing is I've done this sort of looking back historic project with Domlessision. So I have this number handy. But by, you know, adjusted game score. Christian Airhoff's 1011 season is the third best Canucks season post lockout. So of the last 15 years by a defenseman, bested only by Quinn Hughes this year, and Ed Jovanowski in the first year after the lockout when he had 33 points in 44 games. Nice.

Good company. So Apex Mountain, I think it's got to be the Siddines. They're in the second leg of their back-to-back, Art Ross Trophy's here. Daniel gets robbed of the heart, as you mentioned. Corey Perry stole it from him, and we'll never forgive him for that, but he takes home that Lindsay. I think at 5-15 in particular, you know, they had the number one ranked power play so you'd expect these crazy numbers, but just the 5-15 production alone where Henrik Cedine has 103, 5-15 assists during those two years. Daniel's second in the league with 75, and no one else has more than 65. So they were just being used perfectly with Mahhotra and Kessler allowed to sort of shelter them and use them the way they're designed to be used.

But just the way they were tilting the ice with, you know, their passing and their create. And fortunately, we got to celebrate all of those things and made them special during this season with their jersey retirement. But it was kind of cool to relive this era where they were just completely dominant. Yeah. And they hit this gear in 10-11 where they like didn't even have to send passes to each other on the ice. Like they just sort of lob it at one another. They were playing at different sports sometimes. And it shows up in the numbers, right? If you go from the season before, so 9, 10, 10, 11, and then 1112 and sort of combine those seasons,

Burroughs and the twins were the only three players in the NHL who were plus 100 over the course of that stretch. They would have been one, two, three, natural hat trick. Sorry, so the Sadiens were both plus 100. Burroughs was slightly under 100. And the only guy who interferes with a natural plus minus hat trick for that line over that three-year span is Zadano Charra, which is hilarious. But look, I mean, by basically any metric, I mean, they were both. top five in scoring over that stretch. Like their peak, their sort of four or five year peak was properly elite, right?

Like up there with Ovechkin and like Marty St. Louis, like that's their company. They were as good as anyone's ever been for a five year stretch, at least in the sort of salary cap era. And yeah, this was them at the absolute cerebral, completely impossible to knock off the puck, dangerous off the rush. They're skating, it improved. Their strength it improved. they had this ability to just outlast opponents in terms of their stamina.

They were ruthless. They like stole the oxygen from opposition lungs and then scored these beautiful geometric, you know, goals against players that could barely stand. And look, it was cruel. It was fun. It was unique. We'll never see anything like it again, not just in hockey, but across sports. Two twins who played their whole lives together.

And as a result, came up with. their own chemistry, their own unique style of play. You know, remarkable. And you're right. To watch them at the height of their powers, to go back. I mean, it's just a treat. We've never seen anything like it. We'll never see anything like it again. And boy, was it fun. The other clear apex here for me is Ryan Kessler. You know, he reportedly, I guess, played with a groin and labrum tear from game five in the Western Conference final later on this postseason. But, you know, he's kind of quiet offensively in this series as we touched on in that hit-to-head battle with Taves. But in the following round,

against the Predators. He plays about as immaculate a series as you can have where he's playing 25 minutes per game. He's got five goals, 11 points, 24 shots in those six games. Like, he just completely rips the heart out of the Predators. He won the Selke this year, had the 41 goals as well. The team was just insane with him on the ice at 515, and he was playing with, you know, brother Mason Raymond, Michael Samuelson. There was like a Jeff Tambolini stretch.

Like, it was just, he was on another level. So I think, you know, the Cidines are clear. clearly the apex and I think Kessor was as well. And that one-two punch down in the middle that we talked about was the reason why this team was so good. Yeah. No, you're right. And those are the guys. Like that's, that one-two punch elevated the Canucks for a two-year stretch.

And you're right. Those guys were just at the absolute, absolute peak of their powers. And they crushed it. Like, they were so fun to watch. You know, the shouts to Michael Samuelson too. Samuelson, obviously not probably the most deserving name for Apex Mountain. but you know this was the second of two 50 points seasons that he had in Vancouver and he was just such a uniquely good fit for the twins like he was grumpier than them against opponents he was quietly

really good at the net front and he shot from everywhere like he had absolutely no conscience and for the twins they've often been at their best with mad volume shooters to play with because if you do anything that's a little bit unpredictable, the Siddine twins can figure out how to adjust to you and use it. And that's something that they did really perfectly with Mikhail Samuelson. In this game, they're playing with him. And I think this is one of the last two games that Samuelson plays as a Canuck. Truly one of the underrated Canucks tenures,

he was absolutely dynamic in his two Vancouver seasons. Yeah. Doc and Eddie's commentary corner, It's a shame that the CBC version isn't online just because there were a couple great low-ongo saves, and it would have been awesome to hear a great save Luongo from Jim Husing. But, you know, listening to John Foresland and Razor Ray, who I think at this point are both sort of top five guys of their respective positions in play-by-play in color was cool. They messed up the first goal call.

They said Mason-Rameans quarter and it was actually X Burroughs. But beyond that, I actually thought they really settled in and did a good job of sort of less is more. Like, I felt like they let the play breathe a little bit. I think sometimes with these epic game sevens, especially like Pierre McGuire is doing it, he's just like, he feels the need to elevate his voice to match the energy of the game. And it just kind of ends up like sounding like someone's yelling at you, whereas I think they do a good job of sort of capturing the moment, just letting it breathe and just letting the play speak for itself. And I really appreciate that in the rewatch. 100%. The other thing to note, I think, is the, you know,

extent to which national broadcasts miss razor these days. Like that makes absolutely no sense. Um, they need to get Razor back. I learn how to talk about hockey. Like I get smarter about how to talk about hockey more artful every time I listen to a Razor broadcast. Um, you know,

I now know to call pads pillows and a variety of other fun sort of things that I, that I get to pick up when I watch him call a game. Uh, so you're right. I mean, like, Razor is the best. And it's remarkable.

He refers. to a rebound one of the goalies gives up as big bone which i i mean his vocabulary is next level yeah it's unbelievable and it's it's always artful and fun there's no you know saccharis go to webster about it um it's really straightforward it's just hilarious and and then the last thing is obviously we got to give shouts to uh you know jim houston did call a hell of a game and if you go watch the cbc broadcast they do a tremendous job letting the moment breathe especially after the borough school just sort of, you know, shutting up and letting the audience take over. I think Houston's call called a really strong game,

and then obviously shouts to John Shorthouse on the radio call in Vancouver for, I guess at the time it would have been Team 1040, not TSN 1040. But his call, of course, includes Alex Burroughs, the Dragon Slayer call, clearly Shorty's most famous call, probably the most famous call. you know aside from he'd play on crutches like you know he'll play he'll play on crutches if he asked you like those are sort of the two calls that sort of stand out in canucks history and so we got to give some shouts to shorty for that yeah and the last category who won the game

I think we made it pretty clear it's got to be burrows from quite literally winning the game to just um I think the story as you so neatly outlined but just like the fact that he also just did it in vintage burroughs fashion right place right time bearing his opportunity I think it's got to be him, right? It's got to be him. And also another thing to note about Burroughs is his wife was pregnant and had a complicated pregnancy during the time of this sort of series. So like Burroughs almost didn't go to Chicago for game six, but they sort of decided that

they'd take that chance. And his daughter, Victoria, is born the next day. And I guess the one thing, I didn't say this as my unanswered question. But one thing I've never asked Burroughs that I always mean to is, did you name your daughter, Victoria, because you'd won the day before? Last thing is, on the oral history that I published, there's a athletic commenter named Paul P. And Paul P. relayed this story.

And this is completely unverified. It's like from an internet commenter, but it's so good. So I got to read it. A friend of mine's sister, he says, is married to one of the Blackhawks from that series. I won't say who. My favorite story from that playoffs is that after the goal happened, the Chicago players trudged back to their locker room and just sat there in complete silence. Finally, unable to hold it in, someone shouts, anyone but fucking burrows,

followed by a chorus of agreement from the rest of the players. That sums up the situation pretty well. I think Yeah, no, that's good It's crazy that Paul Pierce had that story Yeah The truth, the truth, that's right All right, man, well, this was a blast

We 100 minutes on this rewatch Pretty much as long as the game, I think As long as the game before broadcast So there was a lot of stuff to get into Hopefully we did it justice Trans plug some stuff Where can people check you out And how can they find that oral history you did?

Yeah, it's the oral history of Alex Burroughs' overtime game winner. It's at the athletic. Probably an article I'm prouder of than just about any that I've ever done. Took a ton of work. You know, drove out to El Segundo after a Canucks morning skate in Orange County. Like, did some truly ridiculous shit to get this done. You know, leaned on the help of some colleagues.

Figured it out. Got some great quotes from guys like Kessler, Taves, BXA, Luongo. So everyone played ball, Patrick Sharp too. So look, it was a lot of fun to do. And I hope people check it out after listening to this podcast. Also, you can find my work at theathletic.com. And I'm on TSN 1040 regularly as well. All right, man.

Well, I highly recommend everyone does that. This was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. I hope everyone listening got a nice little, much-needed distraction for the past two hours and goes back and enjoys these games. Stay safe. Wash your hands. stay indoors whenever you can, and we'll be back in a couple days with that next bewatchable.

So thanks for listening and Drans. Stay safe and we'll talk soon. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. The Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.