The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 420: We're All Trying to Find The Guy Who Did This

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

Satiar Shah joins the show to discuss Vancouver's horrible start to the season, who's really to blame for it, and what the Canucks organization will do next to try and fix it. Topics include: How surprising these early results are Why the organization pivoted this offseason The team's decision to make all-in moves Bloated expectations heading into the year The media's role in influencing those expectations The 8 years of the Benning regime How much ownership's meddling complicates things Whether the coaching really is to blame Why their playing style doesn't match their personnel Elias Pettersson's struggles over the last year and a half What happens next in Vancouver If you haven't done so yet, please take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. Smash that 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out greatly. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a little note about why you recommend people check the PDOcast out. Thanks for the help! 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.

On a beautiful run through the park, on a pleasant day, you can easily get lost. No, no, no. She didn't kill him. Huh? In your true crime podcast. It was the pool guy. So obvious. Whatever motivates you works for us. It's all about letting your run be your run. And Brooks is here for every runner.

Doing the research and sweating the details to create gear that works for you. It's your run. Brooks, run happy. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dimitri Phil. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dimitri Vopovich and joining me. We're a good buddy, Satyar. What's going on?

What's going on, Dimitri? It's good. It's good. It's good to have you. We're here drinking a, we're not even sponsored by Main Street Brewing, but we're having a Main Street Brewing brew here. We're recording this on Thursday evening. Yeah.

I'm sure all the days are kind of blending together for you this week with everything that's going on with the Canucks. But I appreciate you taking the time to come chat. This is episode 420 of the HockeyPedio cast. It's not going to be very nice, though, because we have to talk about Canucks again. We probably need something for 420 to get us through a Canucks podcast, it seems. Yeah, yeah, certainly. So where to start with this team?

I mean, let me set the scene for those that haven't been in close tension. So they're 5, 10, and 2 start the year. They have a minus 16 goal differential. It's been punctuated by a recent three-game road trip where they got outscored 19 to 6. They have the 28th ranked power play, which aside from one game against the stars, I believe, where they had like three power play goals or something. It's been pretty much non-existent. They had one market correction game.

Yep. They have the 32nd ranked penalty kill, which isn't only the worst penalty kill in the league this season, but historically that. Like, I believe they're giving up like almost 16 goals per 60 or something like that. I went through some of the numbers. It's the worst PK in the cap era. Okay, so we got that. They have a 515 expected goal share of 46.1% which is 27th best.

They have three regulation wins so far. One was against Seattle in Seattle's home opener where I think it's fair to say they got outplayed and they kind of just stole it at the end thanks to Connor Garland's heroics. And then two against the stars and the Blackhawks who are 32nd and 30th in regulation wins themselves. No team has spent a greater percentage of their games trailing so far than they have, which is amazing. They just passed the coyotes. Coyotes held that for dear life and they finally,

wrestle it away from them. So other than all that, it's been a smashing success so far. So now that we set the scene here in terms of how bad it's been, where do you want to start this conversation? Because I really wanted to just have you on to kind of hash it out.

I remember last year, the two of us and our pal, Harmon Dyle, got together, and we kind of did like a sort of state of the union. And it felt like, I think that was like a month into last season as well, right? And at that time, I remember everyone was panicking about what the Canucks were up to.

it felt like their season was spiringly out of control. And we were pretty critical of the entire organization at the time. I think we were ultimately pretty fair and balanced. You know, the overwhelming feedback I got from people, usually you get a lot of like, oh, don't speak poorly about my team. It was a lot of people in this market feeling like very cathartic that just to hear their frustrations voiced within the organization, with the organization, voiced on a public platform.

And, you know, now we flash forward. It's not even a full calendar year later because that wasn't like February or something. And we're just doing this all over again. And not much has changed. The only thing different about that podcast and this one is no harm, and we're doing this face-to-face. And it's good to see you face-to-face. It's beautiful to get to do this. Obviously, poor circumstances, but great to do this.

No, absolutely. And, you know, it is a lot of the same, right? So I think where we do have to begin, I think is instructive because of everything that's happened from the very beginnings, especially for people that may not be up to speed with what's happened here. Jim Benning and Trevor Lennon took over over seven years ago. And when they came in, the Siddines were still here, the remnants of that 2011 team stole parts here. So they decided to run it back and try to push for a year or two to maximize the Siddine's final couple of years. And the thing Jim and Trevor were very steadfast about was we can rebuild on the fly.

We can be competitive and we can rebuild. And nobody forgets that after that first year they made the playoffs, a very proud Trevor Linden said, this is very vindicating to us, that our plan is coming to fruition. People have laughed at us, but this is what we want to do. And ever since that year, it's been failure after failure. That first year, they said they're going to be a playoff team. They got 100 points. They got in.

They hit their mark. Since then, they have not met expectations outside of the 2019-2020 season when they went through the whole bubble. The thing, though, is, Dimitri, and you know this, the plans change numerous times. Yes. Right? It was, we're going to be patient, rebuild on the fly. And then it was, hey, we feel like we're ready to win. You go on a sign J.B.

You go out to help out the young guys because we're close. Right. And then 2019, you go all in on that team. Now last year, you take a step back. Now you're back into being all in again. So over these seven and a half years, there hasn't been a clear, coherent plan that they've been trying to execute.

And that's why we're sitting here asking these hard questions about what are you trying to be and what truly is your plan? You're glossing over a few steps along the way. Oh, there's a lot. I think it was cold notes, yes. What was the, I think it was year one, right? There's that tweet that still gets passed around every once in a while where I believe it was 2014,

and Jim Benning says, we believe we can turn this thing around pretty quickly, right? Quickly. And eight years later. Yeah. So at that very point in time when we did this podcast last year, the reason why we wanted to do a show at the time, I remember, was it felt like they were on the precipice of finally making some sort of meaningful change, right?

Like, there was a lot of rumblings. It felt like they were, like, aware of how the league was speaking about them. And they were ready to kind of critically acknowledge where they stood in the NHL's hierarchy, right? And I'm not sure what you heard. about then or if you reported or if you talked about it on your show. But from my conversations with people, it seemed like at that time, Jim Benning was a bit of a lame duck GM in the sense that that Kulini said basically taking the car keys away from him and said, all right, no more, no more shenanigans. Like, let's just sit tight here. And they didn't really want to, I guess,

maybe deal with the process of firing them, hiring someone else, paying two people on the payroll to do the one job. And so they kept them around. And instead of kind of seeing that, through and then moving on, it felt like this off season, for some reason, something changed where they felt like, all right, instead of making that change, let's instead stay in the same direction and keep pushing forward and kind of kick this can down the road even further. Like, is that a fair read in terms of the situation? Yeah. Sort of what happened in like, what bridges those two events?

Well, you know, it's really fascinating because I remember the conversations we had and I remember from everything I had heard, I was like, I'd be surprised if we don't see a change by the end of the season. I remember you're saying like, I don't know. time we hear that it doesn't happen. And this is the truth. People have been trying to get Jim Benny fired every month or every week for seven and a half years. He's still standing. So he finds a way to remain, right? And there's a survival lesson there for people, one way or another. But I do think what happened last year was, we covered some of the ground, but I think ownership, some

degree felt some sense of responsibility because they cut the taps off last year. It was very evident. They went from, because here's the thing, Jim was very, very forceful in saying, we have a plan to bring Markstrom back, and have back, and bring Defoldy back. We have a plan. We think we can do this.

I believe that one that went to present this plan to ownership, ownership's like, yeah, no, we don't have the money for that. Fine, if you want the budget to make these moves, how about I get rid of some contracts that are pretty bad, then we'll give you the budget. Now, that was pandemic driven, economically driven. So I do think, to

some degree that last season, there was a sense from ownership that they were responsible and as frustrated as they were and as much as they wanted to blame Jim, I do think there was a sense of, okay, we really pulled the rug from under these guys, we felt pretty good about where the team was headed. Is it fair to this group to just get rid of them after we're the ones that were responsible for cutting the taps? But the thing is, it was so much worse than anybody thought. I don't think ownership ever anticipated that them, you know, being a bit more cash conscious and them saying, hey, you have less to work with that they would end up in the situation they were. They thought at least

they'd be competitive. So I think it ended up being full. far worse than they thought. And I do believe there was one point in time where they felt probably they had to move on from Jim, but I think they had a really hard time finding who comes in and who is credible that can come in and do the job and who can do the job who doesn't want an extraordinary amount of money to deal with everything that goes around. I was going to say I think one of those big checkmarks that needs to be hit is who wants to take the job. And the ones who want to take the job, a lot of them, they'll do it for the right price. Right. So if you make me the highest paid GM where you're

make me one of the highest paid executives, perhaps I will endeavor to run your franchise. So I think they ran into some problems. And we do know looking at the landscape with angel GM and candidates, it hasn't been the strongest, especially the last couple of years, at least when talking to people about who's an up-and-comer, who actually has a lot of credibility. So I think they had some issues we're trying to line up who to take over. And I do think cash became an issue. You get rid of Jim, who I believe isn't getting paid a ton as far as GM goes. I wonder if there was a reduction after the pandemic. I'm actually paying them to stay humble.

I mean, I was like pay as you go. So I do think there's that consideration there as well with Jim, but I do think they were pretty close to making a change, and then something kind of happened. And the plan to bring the Siddines in, I do think it's earnest to some degree that down the road, perhaps they can become executives, but I think it was about them buying themselves another year,

that we don't really feel like paying more guys to not play for us. We're paying guys to not play for us. We're paying guys in buyouts. for paying guys to not work for us anymore. How much longer can we keep doing this? Well, so Jim had a media billability today. I believe it was just Jeff Patterson that asked him something along the lines about paraphrasing, but like how much did the success in the bubble sort of influence things or make you believe

that like this group was ready to compete or take that next step, right? And I think Jim kind of passed that question off. But it's very clear, like it was the perfect storm, I think, of this protective cover for this group to basically run it back this off season where they were coming off that wildly successful run in the bubble there before. It was a 56 game season last year with no one in the stands,

so there was no one really around to kind of vocalize their frustrations with the product. It was all jammed into a couple months, so it really flew by. It was like the perfect storm for like a shitty season, right? And they could kind of justify,

like, as you said, they cut off the taps, all right, we were kind of going through quote unquote financial hardships, take that as you will. Relative to billionaires. Yes, of course. And they kind of use that as an excuse to kind of handwave everything.

And then this off season, they committed so much financially this group, right? They bought out Holti one year after signing him. It was the right move to do, but I mean, it's kind of funny, like the optics of signing a goal to a two-year deal

and then buying them out after one year. The extended Tanner Pearson before last year ended. They made, or I forget, was that in the postseason, maybe I remember. It was right before. It was right actually during

the whole COVID outbreak that happened. Okay, yeah. So he extended Tanner Pearson. They made the OAA trade and inherited the final six years of his deal. They obviously traded for an extended Garland and Dickinson. They signed Tucker Pullman. And that's what really caught my eye about what was going on.

It wasn't just financial commitments. They were significant ones for years down the road. And, you know, when you're talking about your change of plans over the years, like for me, that was, it was pretty wild to see that 180 when nothing had fundamentally changed with the actual team for them to just kind of flip it on its head and be like, all right, we're actually going to go in this opposite direction. It was essentially, let's throw money at our problems and see if it changes anything. Yeah.

That's what it was, right? And I do think ownership got a bit tired of bailing out Jim for his mistakes with buyouts and stuff like that, and they were kind of tired of doing that. But then they allowed the buyout. And here's the thing. This management group, or I should say, Jim Benning specifically, has spent almost as much time trying to get out of his own problems than he is trying to improve the team in a meaningful way year to year. Right.

And that's, you're right. And they made a lot of the right moves. I do think in a creative way, the OEL trade, you got rid of some bad money, you've made the deal. You know, we can talk about long term. But, okay, perhaps you did something creative to get around it. But the problem here is you're putting yourself in a hole that you've got to dig yourself out of.

And you have to come up with not imperfect solutions that are the best solutions in front of you that are self-inflicted. Yeah, but the thing, just because you're taking the best road because of your mistake doesn't mean that your process was right. Right. So we can talk about, yeah, you made the best of a bad situation, but your bad situation happened because of your planning and your poor execution of your plan.

And I also think, and this is the big point here too, and it becomes an uncomfortable situation because Jim will never talk on it on record, but how much of an influence is the owner on all of this? Because if the owner has a lot of say in hockey decisions, in player trades and in signings, and let's say that that voice carries a lot of weight, how much of this team is shaped in the vision of the owner?

And if the owner is shaping the vision of the team, how can he blame somebody else if he's a big part of shaping that team? So I wonder how much of that is that play here as well, Dimitri? I mean, Jim is a very easy scapegoat. It's a very easy mark in all of this. And, you know, we were talking about that off air before we started recording? Like, part of me does feel bad because it's very easy, especially, like, they've not put him in a position to succeed at all, trotting them out to the media and having them say all of these horrible quotes in terms of like,

obviously people are going to make fun of it on Twitter, right? And by no means am I defending, I think my thoughts are well documented on the Jim Benning regime in Vancouver. But I think people just expecting someone to come in and fix this when like there's an overarching problem, would you just hinted at or not even hinted just straight up said is going to be a problem. And that's kind of been the struggle of finding someone that's willing to come in that's reputable. that's willing to put up with this the way Jim has, I think. And it's a big issue with this organization. It absolutely is.

And let's just look at the track record. Let's go back to when this ownership group came into place. Dave Nones was already the GM, who was part of the McCall ownership, Stan McCam, and they appointed him after Brian Burke. And, you know, it's well documented now that the deadline, at believe it was 0607, the team was interested in Brad Richards.

Dave Nones at the time did not feel comfortable mortgaging the future to make a deal for Brad Richards and some of the parts in that deal would have included Corey Schneider and some other prospects and good players and perhaps even Ryan Kester's name was kind of thrown in in that rumor. That trade didn't happen. The Canucks ultimately missed the playoffs.

Dave Nona said no a few times to the owner and guess what happened? They lose, he's out. Mike Gillis worked really well with ownership for many years. And when it got towards the end and Mike said we got to rebuild this, we got to turn this around. and he said no to the owner's ideas and plans.

It wasn't that long before he was out. Trevor Linden, when he was kind of saying, I'm not sure about this anymore. And, hey, we were talking about this off air as well that there has been a certain level of romanticism around Trevor Linden and what he was when he was a GM or the president of the team. And initially, he was very much like Jim,

thinking he turned us around in a hurry and very forceful in that. But I think at some point you realize they can't do this. They have to take a patient approach. They have to take a step back here because their initial plan. is not happening. That was not the same idea

Jim had. That's not the same vision Francesco had. And what happened to Trevor? So I think the track record is very, very clear. Guys who have not agreed or have been pushing back

don't end up staying here a long time. So put two and two together. You know, you kind of see where this is going. I mean, okay, so I want to keep spending this conversation forward. The part of this entire sort of discourse that's happened over the past week

to 10 days of this team falling apart, and all the coverage of it. And it really bugs me is the framing by everyone. And this goes from certain parts in the media to the people within the organization of themselves of just like how shock they are that this has happened this season. How they're so caught off guard

and just blindsided as if this wasn't in the range of realistic outcomes. Now, I think they're playing at like a 60-point pace or something, right? I think that would be a dreadful season for anyone. I think before the year, Vegas, in terms of their over-underers, Arizona and Buffalo were at the bottom,

and even they were projected for like 65 points or something like that. Like 57, 58 points is unheard of for a projection, right? So obviously things have gotten out of hand and gotten much worse than anyone should have reasonably rejected. Now at the same time, pretty much every reputable model before the season said this team was like a mid-80s points team that was going to miss the playoffs. Yeah, hover around there, right?

And I just, I think that brings us to this fundamental issue. of there just seems like there's a massive disconnect heading into the season for this team between their realistic outlook and the bloated expectations people had for them predicated on this idea that they had just totally crushed at this off season, right? Anyone you talked to was like, well,

they basically turned a bunch of bad contracts into two players who were going to help them, which is true, they did. But no one really stopped to ask the question or consider, is this organization in a place to be doing this? Do they have the infrastructure in place? Do they have the roster to justify pushing all their chips in like this?

Like trading back-to-back-back first round picks is something that Tampa Bay does when they've had a 128-point season and feel like they need to get over the hump to win a Stanley Cup. A team that is on a playoff bubble does not typically do that. And that was my big issue with it. There was no question that they improved in terms of the on-paper this off-season, right? But people are so stuck up on this idea or stuck on this idea of, well, they got better, so it was a smart trade. But there's such an opportunity cost in a salary cap world where giving away first and basically punting the idea of future financial flexibility the way they did is like unconscionable for a team that was in the position they were at. And that just that bugs me so much.

No, I totally understand. But I think the reason they ended up doing that to a large degree is because their plan failed again. Yeah, right, Dimitri? Because when you build towards a rebuild, you're building towards something over, say, five or six year or tenure, you're getting pieces in place. So first, Brock Brescher comes in and, you know, he has the rookie season in 2017, right? 2017, then at least Patterson comes out in 2018, it crushes it, has a great season. And Quinn Hughes comes in, right? You have Bull Horv out there already and some of the other guys that you're building around.

And when you've already spent your capital being bad for five or six years, and these guys have been part of your team, and then you take a step forward like they did in the bubble year, right? Or somewhat of a step forward. The players feel, okay, we're trying to move forward. We're trying to move forward. We're trying to become a team that can be a contender one day.

And in today's NHL is something that, you know, a lot of guys talk with like Friedman, you're also trying to sell your young core on this being a contender, this being a place you want to stay, and you can be here long term. And I think their failure to be good were on the player so much, and especially kind of hit a breaking point last year with them cutting the taps off, having so many problems, they were understaffed in a big way, players felt the communication wasn't good, a lot of things happened, the players weren't happy about.

And there was a crisis of confidence. I think with a lot of players with the organization. So the organization backed itself into a corner where they felt they had to do something ambitious to sell the players on, hey, we're trying here, guys. Like, Pedersen, don't ask out. Hughes, don't ask out.

You know, Brock, we want to make this. Bo, you're our captain. We want to sign you after this contract. I think there was a lot of pushback and from agents as well saying, what are you guys doing? You guys, like, Bo, I think, at one point, and I don't think he made this very clear,

but I think with conversations with his side and with the team, that it was communicated that you guys better clean up your act because if you don't clean up your act i'm not sure this is going to work here long term i mean when i was a little kid my parents taught me some hard lessons about not taking shortcuts in life yes and not half-assing stuff exactly and it seems like that's applicable i think like correct me if we're wrong but it feels like the fundamental issue was like does this organization have aspirations of actually winning a stanley cup or are they trying to make the playoffs and i think those are two very distinct like

obviously you have to make the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup and we've seen as I'm sure any Canucks fan will tell you oh look at the St. Louis Blues a couple years ago look at the haves last year like any one that makes it can go on this magical run the Canucks came within a goal or two of making the conference finals and the bubbles but at the end of the day for me that is such a short-sighted way of building a successful sustainable NHL team like your aspirations need to be higher than that and it seems like that is kind of one of the pitfalls here I do I do wonder about that, but I also think, and this is perhaps even more problematic, that they can't discern between the difference of building a contender and just getting into the postseason and what that means

and what a meaningful step forward each year is. I wonder if they just view it as, hey, we just think we get in. These guys get more experience. Who knows if you had a good goalie? I do think that part of them actually believes that all they need to do is get into the postseason gain experience year by year. They'll eventually get better, which really is just a hope as a plan. Because you're not really planning a two, three-year outlook with certain things put in. You're looking at a year-to-year, let's get into the posting and let's see what happens. So I agree it's not a cohesive long-term plan to be a cup contender, but I just don't know if from the ownership's perspective, they can discern that difference.

And to me, that's problematic. It certainly is. And like I really don't throw this around lightly, but there's a lot of intelligent fans in this market, as we've seen, they're pretty fed up. Yes. And they've been so badly, like, I guess gaslighting. They've been gaslighted, right? But by media, too, but national media,

and maybe not so much as local media. Yeah, and national media now is pushing back. I'm seeing a lot of people saying calling for Jim's fire right now. Yeah, convenient timing. But I heard a lot of this offseason, well, you have to give this organization credit. They've made some moves this off season. They're trying.

And it's like, under absolutely no circumstances, do you have to give them credit? And I think fans in this market have basically been given a plate of poop and been told to enjoy their five-course meal, right? It's like, it's just so transparent to me that the messaging is, I think, a big issue here where I think a lot, like, there's a big segment of the fan base and a lot of people that were just for whatever reason led to believe that this team was going to be good. And I think that's why there's so much frustration right now.

No one is suggesting that the Kinnock should have three regulation wins in 17 games or whatever they've played. But if you came into the season with the expectations of this is going to be an 85 point team that's going to struggle to make the playoffs, I don't think you're being as upset with this current product. Now, in year eight of this, I think you would probably be upset regardless. Yeah. But I think the optics and kind of the messaging and sort of the spin job that's been going on locally is a big reason why people are. upset. Well, I do think it's expectations, but I also think that they should be judged on higher expectations this year. Right. Because if your goal has been to build towards something in the future,

and you keep talking about playoffs, you've made the playoffs twice in seven years before this season, then I think the standard should have been the postseason. And I think there should be anger and frustration the fact they're not a playoff team. Now, a say, comprehensive evaluation of this team would probably lead you to believe they're at best the bubble team, right? And I think what Vegas had I think some lines had them at 88 points. Some had them at like 90 points. Well, they were a pretty trendy team in the off season. Yeah, they were because of the moves.

That's usually what happens, right? They're the sexy team that had an aggressive off season. So I do think that's part of it, but I do believe they should be judged on higher expectations. And I don't think the anger is necessarily a bad thing now because I do think it is time for accountability. And when you do sell fans on, it's going to get better. We sell fans on, we're going to be good. This is going to be a better year. Trust us.

Trust the process. We're drafting and developing. We're trusting the problem. We're going to be good. We're going to be good. You can't keep selling that and under deliver. And I think now it is justified to be this angry. Francesco Aquilini said this year is going to be different.

He promised season ticket holders in a letter saying it's the darkest before the dawn taking your phrase. That's hilarious. Right. But you use those phrases, Dimitri. You're telling your fans, it's getting better this year. Right. And fans who've gone through a tough time, when it's not getting better, they are angry. Now, did they buy into it too much?

Perhaps. But the reality is most sports fans are emotional, passionate creatures. right? They get into this because... And they prayed on that. Exactly. Yeah. Right? So I do think as much as, yeah, maybe the expectations were too high on them, I don't think

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Sign up for a free trial at Shopify. dot com slash blue wire all lowercase go to shopify dot com slash blue wire to start selling online today shopify dot com slash blue wire well i think something i keep going back to it's hilarious to consider like the players that they got for those all-in moves where they gave up first right have arguably been like their best skaters this season like i think nils hoglanders been been the player i've been been most impressed by on a night-night basis but garland leads a team in five-on-five points Miller's right behind him and leads the team in overall goals and points. All of Berkman-Larsons are net positive in like every underlying five-on-five metric

and has looked significantly better than I or anyone anticipated him to be. And yet they're still here. And I understand like there's two ways to look at that. One is, well, those are good trades because those are the best players. Yeah. But for me it's like, all right, it just goes to show how insane that you're making those moves when those players are actually performing to like the best you could have hoped for from them. And this is still what you have.

That's how far away you were from justifying those moves. You know, the thing is, those guys are supposed to put you over to top. Yeah. And they're not even moving the meter for you right now. Yeah. And that is very troubling. Now, I do think there's clearly there's underperforming going on from some of their top players. That's absolutely happening, especially Elias Peders, right?

I mean, it's absolutely true that their best players are underperforming right now. The question is what is leading to that underperformance, right? And I think that's when we started getting to, is it coaching potentially? This is why you're a broadcasting professional. This is next on my list of stuff to talk about. Good. But it's either coaching or has the environment, has the well, so to speak, been poisoned. And do you get to a point as an organization where their belief is just gone? So is this happening, the lack of success happening because the mix is bad from the thing you put together, which is one possibility,

is the possibility that there is just no faith and trust in the organization because the alignment hasn't been good enough and people see through that and they're just like, oh, here we go again when things go wrong? Or is the coach not optimizing what's going on? The easy answer is a bit of everything because I do think that's at play to some degree. But in what work environment are you building a good situation, are you building an environment for growth and development when you're yo-yoing back and forth all the time?

When one year you feel like you're ambitious, the other year you feel like you're not. And when those things happen, I wonder if that kind of has some of the players reeling, especially the guys who have been here and seen that the last few years. The guys struggling their most guys who've been here now, you're four for Pedersen.

Yep. You're five for Brock Bester. You're seven for... Four of a bat. Those are the guys probably scuffling the most, and they're the guys who've been here the longest. Well, I think two things can be true, right? This roster shouldn't be this bad.

It's like it's not a bottom five team. As much as you can object with it, I think it's flawed and poorly constructive. And they should be getting more out of what they have, and we're going to talk about coaching in a second. And it can also not be as good as you probably positioned it to be and thought it was going to be, right? Like, both those things can be true at the same time.

There's nuance. There's a gray area. we don't need to be hot takey about any of it. So blame is predictably getting shifted now towards coaching. And I wanted to work through that because I certainly, I'm not going to sit here and argue that Travis Green and his staff have done this remarkable job. I mean, especially when your special teams are that poor, that feels like one area where maybe not even the head coach,

but like it feels like that's like your coaching staff should be able to at least make some sort of adjustments along the way for 15 games, 20 games, and you're not continuing to scuffle to that degree. at the same time though like the reason why i do push back to this idea that all right well it's just fire Travis green and salvage the season is i think it's like kind of dangerous to just insinuate that he or any coach is directly at fault for this product and that as soon as you place someone else behind the bench you're going to snap the fingers and it's going to get better like because i i really don't believe that's the case like maybe if you put barry trots behind this team maybe they become great defensively and you could get something, but like, I don't, I don't see it. Yeah, I'm not sure, right? Because, like, so what changes if you bring a new coach in? Now, perhaps special teams gets a bit better, right?

But I don't think in this market, as much as there are a lot of fans calling for it, if the accountability starts with Travis Green, it just seems like a wrong guy to be taken the fall for everything that's happened. Right. Because he's not being given the best thing to work with. Now, you are right, though, as far as special teams go, because the PK, I don't like the personnel. And I do think there are two conversations here, right?

Because multiple things can be true at the same time. The power play, they have enough offensive players and weapons that it shouldn't be this. I'm stunned that it's been as part. It should be good. You have enough, like, the degree of difficulty to get this power to be good for the coaches is not that hard on the power play.

It is a lot harder on the PK with the personnel they have. So they get the most out of the PK, it's a very difficult thing. And I would put the blame on the PK squarely on roster construction. Right. We don't have a single right-handed settlement. You don't have a single left-handed defenseman outside of Oliver Ekmalarston that can kill penalties for you. Right.

You don't have guys that can pressure and that are good penalty killers. That's hard for the coaching staff to get the most out of it. But I do think they deserve a lot of blame on the power play because you've got to find some answers on that. On the PK, it's not. So if the roster construction is getting in the way, and if the mix is that bad that they can't really work together, you can't place it on the coach.

The question is, how do you salvage the season? When the expectation from the owner is, Dimitri, to make the post-season. when there is real pressure to try to sell more tickets this year. Well, I saw that, I saw that quote that there's still, like, what else are you going to say, obviously, at this point? There are nine points, I believe, out of, or actually maybe even more now because the flames won tonight.

They're like double-digit points out of a top three Pacific seed. The Pacific is much better than we had any reason to anticipate, right? Like, we thought it would be top-heavy with Edmonton and Vegas. Calgary looks very good. Anaheim and L.A. certainly look much vice year and readier to compete than we envision them being. So I think it's very dangerous to make any move under the illusion that you're going to salvage this season. Like I think at this point, you need to be as difficult as it is to stomach for them, I'm sure. Like, you have to be thinking,

what can we do to stop dragging our feet here and prevent like irreparable long-term damage? I think, I think that has to be the directive. So I do think that none of us really know what's going to happen next, because I don't think ownership knows what's going to happen next. That's a problem. Right? But I do think that perhaps finally there are now real considerations about what do we do here next. And I think it was interesting because Mike Ford was linked to Francesco Acleen a few days ago by numerous reporters and insiders.

And it was really interesting because he was on the 32 Thoughts podcast just around the same time. And he had some really interesting thoughts on that conversation. And one of the things he said when he's advising owners. and I think it's very clear that Kucs in some capacity I've reached out to him that he says, you've got to give yourself some time. Don't rush into a decision because it takes a couple weeks for you

to be able to make a hire anyways. Buy yourself as much as time as possible, figure out what's going on, and let's craft the plan moving forward. So I think as much as organization was shocked, once they started digging into things, and I do think perhaps there was a consideration to do something and perhaps give the fans

a pound of flesh And I think that was considered, but I do think ultimately they realize that we have to come up with a plan. Now, we can also talk about the fact that they didn't have a plan in case this year went side of which just goes back to hoping their plan. And I'm just hoping and thinking they're just going to be fine, that things are just going to be fine this year. And they thought that, okay, we buy ourselves two years with Travis and Jim and eventually we'll be able to get better and as soonings might take over. That's a very hopeful plan for a regime that hasn't been able to deliver on any promises over 70 years, right? So they probably should have had a contingency in place. They didn't.

But if you don't have a contingency in place and you're stuck in a situation, you don't know who to hire next, you've got to craft the plan. So I do think what's happening right now is also the organization trying to craft a plan of, what do we do if we have to move on these guys? And what does that look like? And I don't think any of us know the answers yet. But what you just mentioned, I think it's going to be the biggest hurdle. How do you convince the owner that maybe the best thing you can do is be patient, take a bit of a step back, and try to rebuild it moving forward again. And I'm not sure they're there yet, but that's probably going to be the biggest hurdle

ownership is going to have to overcome if they're going to try to do, quote, unquote, the right thing moving forward. Yeah, I mean, okay, so, you know, one final thing on Travis Greenier, I guess, like watching these games, I think it's easy to blame coaching because it's a lot difficult to say the players aren't performing well enough.

It's all easy to just fire a coach and hire someone you or promote an assistant as opposed to getting rid of players. I don't know Without like becoming like Armature psychologist here I really don't think it's a matter of Travis Green having lost this team

Or them checking out like What the most recent game against the abs Like they compete they competed pretty hard in that game I think right A couple of costly Mistakes and like compounding errors Led to a couple quick goals and they lost That happened in Vegas as well where I thought they came out well, they played hard, then the penalty kill kind of took over, unfortunately, and they made

some mistakes, and then it kind of snowballed, right? And you can talk about adjustments and whatnot, but I really don't think it's as simple as, oh, you need a different voice in that room, which I think people often kind of resort to as an easy excuse for this. I think where criticism is genuinely warranted is, while I didn't think this would be a good team heading into the season, one thing I did think was they'd be highly entertaining to watch. Yes. I thought they, I'll probably, I'll front, the forward group looked fantastic. We're going to talk about Pedersen here in a second, obviously, in a depth, but I thought they'd score a lot of goals, they'd be fun, and while the defense was always going to be a

problem, at least they'd get into some of these high-scoring track meets, and they'd score a bunch, and that just couldn't be further from the truth. They're 25th in 505-5, we expect the goal rate. 24th and high-dangered chance generation rate. They're 27th in 5-15 goal-scoring rate, and the big stat for me here is in 2019-20, they were first in terms of the pace they played at a 5-1-5, which is just combining shot attempts for and again. It's just kind of a signal of like how fast the puck is basically going from one

into the other. They're down to like 22nd this year alongside like Dallas and Montreal. And when you look at the roster, like it just makes no sense to me that this team should be playing at that slow of a pace. And I'm not sure how much of that is by design, how much of that is just an unfortunate accident, and how much of it is them just not having the puck or not being good or whatever. but like if I was stepping into this room, I'm no coach by any means, but I would be like, we need to figure out a way how to crank the dial here on playing

faster because this is like, we just can't get away playing this way. So this is my biggest question with Travis and the coaching staff in general. Are they trying to be a team they're not capable of being? Right. And I think that's a fair question to ask. Now how much of that is coaching direction or like you mentioned, lack of execution, the player makes being wrong, whatever it is, because I see the same thing.

Now it's funny because we have, access to the puck tracking data now. And the Canucks have been one of the best teams, I think the best team, the team with the most actual time with the puck on their sticks. Because they've been cycling really well. Exactly, right? And they're cycling really well, or they're just holding onto the puck a long time, but they're not doing anything with it.

Yeah. Right? So that slows their pace down. So I think what they're trying to become is this like hard team to play games that dominates puck position, holds onto it and makes plays and, you know, is very patient with it. But they're not built to do that, right? They're a team that has to be a bit quicker in transition.

They've got to create chances. It almost has to be a track me, like you mentioned, because I don't think this team can play good enough defensively to be able to limit chances against. And I know they talk about their five-on-five game, Dimitri, and how they've been good defensively. I don't think they've been as good as they make it out to be. I really don't think so.

So if you're not even getting the defensive side of things, which you're talking about, and I hear Travis talk about the type of team they have to be, and he keeps saying the only way we can be good is if we're on our toes and play a complete game. I'm not sure that's true, though. You know what I mean? Now, how much of that is also how you built your team,

how you think the team is constructed and how, say, the GM wants a team to play versus what the coach wants. But I don't see a team with the personnel to play the way these guys want to play. They talk about meat and potatoes, Jim does, right? He talks about being a hard team to play against. They talk about being a team

that plays the right way in the postseason. And the playoffs, yeah, they get outshot, but as far as playing the right way from coaching terms, yeah, they defended well. They kept the sticks in the right lane. They boxed out. Things like that, right? Like winning battles in the corners,

creating some chances. But they're not a team that's built to be able to play this grind you down game. And I think they're trying to do that to some degree. And they're just not capable. No, I mean, there's been a clear shift in the dynamic. Like, I think back to, especially pre-pandemic, like, before the season shut down in that 2019-20 regular season, like, you know, they were certainly an imperfect team. Don't get me wrong. Yeah.

But they were playing this beautiful sort of chaotic, high event, equal opportunity style where they were, benefiting off of the randomness and kind of mayhem of a puck balancing around and like all of a sudden you know they get outplayed for a bit but all of a sudden the puck will balance this way and then they'd get a chance and they had talent to convert on that right and like for better or for worse I just feel like that type of uptempo style where you live with the negatives on certain nights but you embrace that variance is something they have to go and and that's what brings me to the coaching because I totally understand from an NHL coach's perspective that's not a particularly palatable approach. where you kind of like there's going to be certain nights where you wind up and a lot of these coaches take great pride in in defense and then breaking down the tape the day the day after and being like oh look at this look at this look at this I know Travis like I don't know personally but I know from stories of him and from people that has spoken to him like he certainly takes pride in that and I imagine there is a certain element of you know self-preservation or kind of trying to avoid embarrassment especially when you look at the personnel you have on this blue line to try and play a certain way and they're just not built to do you that right like they've tried to paper over these flaws that they perceive in their roster and it's kind of it's accomplishing the opposite effect in like an ironic way right like they're trying to do something and instead it's pushing them even further away from that I believe they're bottom two in rush chances for and against and and you know that abs game recently like the other night um I think it was the top line was out and they had this in the first period they had this long

shit they're cycling right they got a couple shot attempts they look dangerous and literally within two seconds, the abs had a three on two the other way, where they wound up with a shot right directly from the slot. It wound up getting, you know, blocked or saved and didn't wind up resulting in a goal. But that was like, if you need one short clip to take from like describing this Canucks team, it's that. Yeah. Like they spent 45 seconds doing nothing. And then in two seconds, the other team had like 10 times the expected goals. It takes so much work for them to do the simplest thing, right? It takes so much effort to try to gain the zone, right? Try to get out of your own zone, try to defend or do whatever, to try to create a chance, and it just goes back the other way.

And I do wonder, too, right? Sometimes when you're close to something, you spend so much time trying to fix the things you're not good at, that you almost lose sight of what you are good at. And I wonder if the organization, to some degree, kind of did that this offseason, whether it's from Jim and Travis, because Travis is a coach, because here's the thing, you're right, coaches are all about evolution. How do I mature my team? How does my team get better? How does my team become a, a really good all-around hockey team. The thing is you got to know when to push for that and when you have that and when to accept

your team for what it is. And I do think that's a big question here. Did you build the team in the proper vision? Do you have a real grasp of what you truly have? And is that all on Travis? I do think, you know, obviously

the coach has to find some answers, right? Like, you know, in a situation, you got to find, to put your team, what do we say? You shouldn't coach the system you want. You should coach the system that curtailed. the team you have. And I do think it's a legitimate question right now. But I do also believe that from an organizational directive and from a team-building directive,

they want to build to be a certain way. And they haven't built a team to be that certain way. So if they're asking Travis to have this team that's better defensively, and that's why they hired Bradshaw, and I think last year a lot of the conversations after the season was we've got to be better defensively, guys. What is this mess? Like we're so permissive, we're one of the worst teams in league defensively.

This can't happen next year. We've got to be better defensively. That was a big, big part of their off season to bring Bradshaw and to have the type of effect. So we can blame Travis for not getting the best out of team, but also is this kind of what the team that Jim wanted, that the owner wanted, that they push for, that they're trying to push for.

And I do think at some point here, they have to realize that they've got to go the other way with this. Yeah, no, I mean, and like, okay, let's talk about Peders now because I think certainly, like, it hasn't helped matters that the best players in this team haven't been nearly good enough and I do wonder if they were scoring up with their capabilities. I don't think that would necessarily solve everything for this team. But it certainly wouldn't look as bleak as it has so far.

And they would, at least on a certain occasion, be able to bail them out of a lot of these problems, right? And this all ties together. I think the blue line, it was so poorly constructed, considering that they're spending, I believe, like the sixth most cap dollars on it in the entire league. And they aren't able to sort of sustain. Like, when you have a team that's 30th or 31st and a rush chances for,

like, of course your forwards are going to look, bad. Like that's how you create your easiest offense. If you have to grind out every single offense's own shift for a minute and 20 seconds before getting a good look, like that's not a sustainable way to build an offense in 2021. At the same time, like, Pedersen's continued struggles are the elephant in the room. And I don't know, like, you talk about, you obviously have to talk about this all the time and after every game, but like how to even broach this subject, because on the one hand, I think he's a clearly immensely talented player who just turned 23 years old. and I think the world of him as a talent.

On the other hand, it's been a while since we've seen that. And there was a big injury in there. And his shot rates and his shot attempts, shots on goal, high danger chances are all down. And that tells me that it's a player that might not be very comfortable shooting the puck fully yet, especially for someone who relies on their shot to be such a weapon. But, yeah, like without him firing on all cylinders, quite literally, like they're coming to a gunfight with a butter knife. basically, right? Like, it's just they don't stand a chance. And so I, you don't want to, I don't want to

be the, the, the, the boomer here that's putting it on Pedersen's plate, because it's certainly far from that. Right. But like, it's impossible to have this conversation about this team's struggles without at least discussing what's going on. Well, you have to, I mean, you know, especially from the analytic models, he's been one of the best players in league, especially his first couple, especially his second year. Right. I guess far as, you know, wins above expected, goals above, you know, expected and just overall value to his team, drawing penalties. He's been one of the most value. player is in the league. Right now, he's, it's not even close.

No. You know, like, you can even make the case that he's below water with how he's playing in a lot of different ways, right? Sat, he's got not only zero five-on-five goals this season, but correct me if I'm wrong here. He has the same number of five-and-five points as Matthew Highmore. Yes. He has fewer five-on-five primary points in Luke Shen.

Yes. He's played five games. Yes. It's really bad. That's really bad. That's not good. It's not great. I mean, he's literally playing like a replacement level player below, but below replacement level, you know, and that's not the level you expect from your superstar. Like, I think he's a better player than this. He's going to be better than this. I think he's going to find, figure it out, and he's going to be an immensely impactful player. But is there

an easy answer here? And I hate saying it, but I remember talking to some former players, Yanuk Hansen brought this point up. He just said he hasn't played enough games the last two years. He said, you know, he had a tough start the other year, but then after that he figured it out, then he has a bad risk injury, hasn't had a long-term injury in his career. He misses seven months, doesn't play a game, comes back and plays, and he's just not up to speed yet. I think that's an easy answer. I don't know if it's fully true, though. I think there's more at play here. And I do think, to some degree, going back to the conversation about how this team is playing, I wonder if he is stimulated. I wonder how much of looking at this team and how they're playing

and what they're doing has him going like, ugh, really? And one thing I do wonder about is I keep saying I wonder. I know why. You're a thoughtful guy. You're just wondering about stuff. I was wondering about stuff. But I do think, I'm not sure he wants to be the player they want him to be right now. Right.

Well, that's, yeah, that goes out. You know what I mean? So, and I don't mean as in like, you know, be the superstar player. As far as playing the way they want to play as a team and his role in doing that. And we talked about his maturity as a really good two-way player, but I still think he wants something else. And I'm not going to speak for him. and this is just my opinion on it,

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the frustration, in addition to his wrist maybe not be 100%, in addition to him being a bit rusty and confidence waning and all that sort of stuff, is that he's not loving how they're trying to be and perhaps what they want him to be as a player within the system. Yeah. Well, like, I went back and watched all of his 5-15 shifts

on Instad's database, and it was certainly better in the most recent game, like the Forchick was kind of back to what we expect from it, and they were creating opportunities off of it, but some of these offense's own shifts, Like, it's, the level of inactivity is, is, is, is wild to me, right? Like, not, like, I just, at his best a year and a half ago, like, he was involved in everything, right? And, and, and he was all over the place and he was creating all sorts of stuff.

Not that he's, like, the, the, the deception in his game and his ability to get into those dangerous areas. And it just, it's not there anymore. Like, he's not shooting from the slot. He's not, it's a totally different statistical profile and a totally different. test. Like, it's just a different player. It looks like someone replaced the last Pedersen with a guy who looks like him, but he isn't the same player. It's so jarring

to watch. You're right, though, the other night it was a bit better. And I do think his team didn't do him favors the other night, too, because he was screaming through neutral zone with speed, and he just wasn't getting the puck. And if he gets the puck on a few of those opportunities, you see transition chances, you'd see a few rushes, and we'd probably have a different conversation about

Pedersen today, potentially, about, okay, where his game is trending. So maybe it is a bit closer. But you're right, That movement in his game, you know, I kind of likened him when I first saw him to Neo in The Matrix, because when he was on the ice, he was involved with everything, just like you mentioned, right? Like those types of guys, and LeBron's liked that in basketball, that he plays one position, but he's so finely in tune with everybody else, and he knows exactly what to do and where to go, that it was just this beautiful motion to his game.

And Pedersen had a lot of those qualities to his game as well. So going back to the system and how you're playing and what you're trying to accomplish, if he's being asked to be more specific in his duties and to perhaps not do certain things as much as he did in the past is that going against his nature and instincts as a player too to some degree? Yeah, I mean, it's got to be, right? Like the talent just didn't disappear. No, it didn't.

And we saw the peak of that talent, Dimitri, in the postseason against even Vegas and the blues. Right. He was unbelievable. Yeah, and you saw the shot, like the shot making was like, he was just, yeah, he was picking spots on the net

and just labeling the puck there. And it was just like, eating goalies cleanly, which very few players can do. Yeah. And, you know, when they sign him to that,

it was three by seven, three five, I believe, like you're thinking that's a steal because, all right, he's clearly under the assumption that he's not only going to get back

to the player that he was, but at this age, you expect he's going to even take strides. That's a steal for the next three years and all. We can use those cap savings that he should be making so much more. can use that to improve this team elsewhere.

But instead now, like, it's, it's a matter of, I think, you know, we're talking about objectives for the rest of this season. Like, you got to, you got to get him back on track to a degree where you can, like, feel confident that he's going to be that player. I understand, like, without knowing the health reports or what percent his risk is actually at or what's going on there, like, he's on the ice. I assume that he's good to go. You need to figure out ways to make it easier for him.

I do believe, like, you're right, getting him the puck on the move. Yes. With requires having players that can pass the fuck cleanly from tape to tape. And the Canucks have very few of those, unfortunately. Right. It's a problem. It is a problem, too, right? And, you know, it's funny because at times, though, like I remember a couple times last night,

it was Brock Brestor not giving him the puck, right? And there was this kind of paralysis at times with them with their making plays. And it's funny because last year, we saw so many bad turnover, so many ambitious plays they tried, were just so stupid that got picked off and didn't happen the other way. They're so risk of versus here. Right. Right.

And J.T., however, will throw some blind passes. You know, he'll do his thing. He still has that audacity to his game. But that kind of, you know, I'll use a soccer term, the courage in their games to try to do stuff, it's kind of gone away. You know, and how do you rekindle that, right? And how does that kind of come back? And how does a coach get through to them to change it?

Do you need to change something here? Is it on you? Is it a greater issue than it? But the reality is form, his form is temporary. That class shouldn't go anywhere, right? That class is still there in him. You've got to find a way to do that. I mean, your biggest challenge as an organization, I think right now, is to get Patterson right.

How do you get him right? And do you have to get to the point where you just sit down and say, okay, what do you need? Right. No, what do you need? What do you need from the team? what you need from the coach. We need to figure this out. Because if you don't figure out Pedersen

and if you don't make it work, it's all done. It's all over. None of this matters the next four or five years. No. And yeah, I miss watching as Paterson from two years ago on the ice and the offensive zone

just doing what he used to do. Especially like hockey nerds because the stuff he does, right? Oh, it's brilliant. His understanding of the game, his understanding, his spatial awareness, right? And just so those sort of things, It's beautiful hockey when he's at his best.

And I think players like him that are kind of artistic, they can also be a bit enigmatic, right? And the environment around those players does matter a lot. And what is the environment like? And players like that are also kind of emotional, right, and can be a little sensitive and stuff like that, a little prickly and all those sort of things. You've got to have the proper ecosystem around them, too.

You were at the game on Wednesday, right? Yes. So, okay, so I'm curious. Let's spin this forward. let's end the conversation here because I'm not going to ask you what you do next because it's so tenuous at this point.

It's a fool's errand. But, you know, we're recording this on Thursday. They just lost the abs on Wednesday. They have two more home games here over the weekend on Friday against the Jets on Sunday versus the Blackhawks. Both at home.

I think on Wednesday night, we heard some brief interludes from fans voicing their displeasure with the team. There were certainly some signs that were confiscated quickly by security, which kind of stinks. I thought they were pretty creative and it is what it is.

But it's so wild to me, this notion that you would see what's going on here, see what's happened the past seven or eight years and say, all right, the next couple games are going to determine the fate of this franchise. Like, I wouldn't run a coffee shop like that. No, no. Let alone a professional sports organization.

Like, it's, it's, you know, let's see what the sales are like over the next seven days. before we decide whether we're going to take something off the menu or not. But it does feel like they're kind of at this crossroads, right? And something, if the wheels already are in motion, as you mentioned, with a headhunter and kind of trying to figure out what's going on there, you know, the objectives for what you're going to do the rest of the season, I've already said that I think trying to salvage this season is dumb

because I just think you can get yourself into even more trouble, especially if you're trying to, you know, improve the team, drastically by moving more picks, which I don't think is on the table. I certainly don't know how they've been seen. Well, yeah, they're already down their second this year, which is remarkable. I just, I don't know. Like, what, how do we end this? What do we put a bow on this?

Like, what do we look for moving forward here in the immediate future? What, what do these next home games look like? What needs to happen? Like, what do you envision happening? Like, take it any way you want. Well, I think it's interesting because Edminton's, sorry, the jets are coming in. playing their third game in four nights. They're playing the night before they're playing

on Friday against the Vancouver Canucks and the backup's going in, Comory, but Comory's been playing well recently, so that's maybe not easy. And the Canucks said, well, they've laid eggs against teams coming in on three games and four nights before, but it could be, quote, unquote, a scheduled win. Right. You win that game, it takes a pressure. And this is how absurd this is. I think

a big part of this is they want to hope that they win a couple of games in this homestead so they can take a bit of a break and they can take their foot off the gas, so they're only get forced into making a decision. Ultimately, I believe that they're viewing the next 7-8 games as an organization as being critical. And if you look at it as getting to the 25-game mark, that makes some sense. If you're trying to evaluate your team, you usually say, every team does this.

You get to the American Thanksgiving, 20-25 game mark. You evaluate the process and what's going on. And I believe that their ultimate goal had been to get to that mark. The question is, does something force your hand before that? Because this organization has shown that if the fans forced to issue, they will acquiesce. We saw it with a moment. Mike Gillis when they chanted for his head. A bit of a different situation.

But the thing here, though, is they have 33 home games remaining. You got to sell tickets for 33 home games for an organization that felt this thing of not having fans in a building this past season, that felt the sting of finally making the postseason and not being able to have any gate revenue from the postseason. Selling tickets for the rest of this year, bottom line really matters, Dimitri. Right. So if you get to a point where the Jets game and the Blackhawks game are embarrassing, and you lose in a bad way and fans are chanting and booing

and you see ticket sales dwindle and the and the resale market tickets get cheaper and cheaper that probably creates some angst about your bottom line for the rest of the year and that as we know for this ownership group is going to be a big big mark because no matter what the past six or seven years they've done pretty well at the gate no matter what definitely a team that has the Stanley Cup on its mind and not and not ulterior motives wow what a what a time to be alive a stat this was it was a blast I'm glad I'm glad we got do this. Obviously, I wish it was under better circumstances, but it's always fun to talk with you. Um, plug some stuff. Where can people check you out? What are you up to these days? Because

you're, you're working like a man man. You're, you're talking about the Canucks. Not even 24-7, 25-7. You're working an extra hour. All day, every day nowadays it seems. But I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm Sports on 650, Monday to Friday, 3 to 7 on the People's Show. Also host intermissions, pre-game and post-game for Canucks games on radio on sports in a 650. And you oftentimes see me during intermission on the panels for the TV broadcast with Dan Murphy for regional games as well. So that's usually one out to you can check me out on Twitter at Satyar Shah at Satyar Shah on Instagram. But that's pretty much it. I think you're the first podcast guys that's plug their Instagram.

You know what? I'm trying to get up my Instagram. I suck on Instagram. My girlfriend does the stuff for me. She helps me out. Like I'm so bad at it. But she's always like, you got to get your Instagram up. That's the future.

That's the new wave. It is. I only have like a thousand followers. My Instagram game is pathetic. And I post a lot of dog pictures, too. I feel like people should be able to. love your dog pictures. Oh, people should be all over that.

But yeah, apparently they want all my stats and hockey videos. So it is what it is. I don't take it personally. Your brand is strong. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, if people, let me plug some stuff if people enjoy the show, they can rate and review it. I'm posting a watchability rankings on this feed here very shortly.

The Canucks are very low on that list this season. You don't say. Surprisingly. And yeah, we'll be back soon. But sad, this is a blast, man. I'm glad we got to get together and hopefully we'll get you back on sometime soon here. Hey, love to do it again, hopefully under better circumstances next time. Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.