The Hockey PDOcast - What are the Canucks doing?

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

Patrick Johnston joins Dimitri to help decipher what the Canucks are trying to accomplish and why they’re going about it the way that they are right now. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.  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. 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.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich. And joining you my good buddy, Patrick Johnson. Patrick, what's going on in? Well, the last time I was here, we didn't have a pandemic. So what's going to happen next? This is your first time in studio with me here at the 650. First time ever here. But, yeah, you're referencing the last time you're in the PEDO cast was

March 11th. March 11th, 2020. Hang out in my living room, chatting about the Canucks. We were talking about, well, first of all, what's up with the Canucks? And also, hey, what's media like with, you know, no dressing room or something? Yeah. Are they going to have fans? Yes.

Well, a lot's changed and yet not much has changed at all. So it's kind of full circle. So I'm excited to have you on. I don't even know how to enter talking about the Canucks right now because there's so many different ways we could get about it. I knew I wanted to have you on this week. We've had a couple of days now to digest. the Jim Rutherford Press conference where a lot was said

but not much was actually said at all. Yeah. Where do you want to start with this conversation? I'll let you steer us a little bit here out of the gate because we can talk about the coaching element of it. We can talk about the roster. We can talk about the timeline here in terms of what the next

whatever six weeks look like before the trade deadline. I mean, there's so many things to unpack. Hopefully we're going to do it all here in the next 50 minutes. But it's just a matter of, of kind of like this six part series. Peeling back, peeling back the layers

the onion one at the time. Oh my God. You're right. There's so many things. Where to go, especially if you're not sitting here listening to this or dealing with us every day.

You know, I was on that road trip last week and every day, you know, obviously we were in a bunch of different places, but every day there was something different and you're like, whoa. I need to sit down and take a deep breath. And thankfully, I didn't have Wi-Fi

flying home from Toronto via Toronto. So I actually missed the whole press conference live had to catch it. But I was like in many ways, I think in hindsight that was a good thing because I just got a chance to just not think about it because there's so many things to cover. You know, the Rutherford thing obviously stands out. I mean, my big takeaway in there was basically them at least admitting that like Elias Pedersen is going to be the guy. This is who they need to build around. Now, will they actually do that and will they actually go in the way that's going to actually optimize all that? And, you know, I think we're all deeply skeptical of that.

I think, I think, I think they have every intention to do so. Yeah. I've said this, I said this on a recent show this week. If you're following what's going on, every single time Elliot Friedman talks about the Canucks, he makes sure to clarify that Elias Pedersen is the only untouchable on this team. And the messaging of that is not accidental. No. And I think there's a lot of convincing going on.

Yeah. and what they're trying to accomplish with that. The press conference itself, I guess I can't say I'm surprised because the bar to clear is so low. But I was a bit surprised to see how much praise was being heaped on at least like being like honest and like coming out and facing the fire. And then you actually watch the press conference. And there's a lot of contradicting involved. There was a lot of mixed messaging.

I don't, not that you're going to expect anyone to come out and reveal all their trade secrets and be like, this is what we're going to do in Telegraph and there's nothing to gain from doing so. But ultimately, I don't know how you watch that and come away of being like, this organization is moving in the right direction here because, you know, they've clearly got this figured out. I think there should be still a lot of concern about the willingness of this team to do what they need to do in terms of looking in the mirror, facing the reality of the situation being like, this is a long road. ahead. Instead, it seems like they'd prefer to get young players instead of prospects and picks to try to fast track this. I mean, multiple smart people I know have said you could do this in two years. You have to get really aggressive and it's not just finding newer younger players because like what trade are you ever actually going to make where that actually is going to build you into contender?

I think the praise is, you know, like you said, the bar is so low. Because in the past, there was never an acknowledgement of reality. It's like, oh, well, you know, we'll improve internally. And, you know, I mean, Jim Benning, let's not forget, every year would blame injuries. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, last year, last year we had a lot of injuries. So, you know, we, we didn't get a fair shake. And then he'd come into the new season and be like, well, we've got a lot more depth now.

And he did that like every year. Right. On repeat. Yeah. And there was no sort of notion of, well, maybe your players. just aren't good enough. The other thing that came out to me was something I'd long sort of suspected. And it was Brotherford acknowledging that basically you didn't realize how brutal the

cap situation was. But I think in general you didn't realize how big of a job it was going to do. No, I don't think so. I think you looked at, you come in and you say, okay, I know, Quinn Hughes, I've seen him. Yeah, Quinn Hughes, last Patterson, that's a dad. Oh, these are all guys are great. Oh, there's $6 million in dead money for next year.

Like that's the thing like this season. There's literally $6 million in dead money on this on this cap. And that's like that's literally a player. That's Tyler Complears's contract, you know? And then there's Tyler Myers. Right. Yeah. Well, I think I'm skeptical that it's a it's a two year job even if you nailed every move.

And that's why going the young player out is is tricky, especially because in, in theory, like it sounds good. Yeah, it's good guys. You can come in and contribute right now. The reason the teams are probably going to trade those guys is because they have they've assessed that they're not what they had drafted them to be or whatever. Yeah. So now all of a sudden you're like capping your upside because you're getting older players who are going to be more expensive if they do wind up working out for you.

And it's like, all right. I think the issue for me like unavoidable, there's a talent deficit here, Peach. Oh, totally. I like, and that's what stuns me whenever like we tie this into their coaching conversation. But whenever I see people discussing how I can't believe this Kinnuck season. This team should be better. It's like, probably there probably shouldn't be whatever 27th in point percentage. It should be like 24th?

Like I don't like, they have a league average offense, right? They're getting sewered by completely. Well, they're above league average offense, I think. They're just the second worst defense. But that's more than anything. It's the defense has been a disaster. Their penalty kill is like all time bad. You look at last year, you know, in many ways this team is probably a little better offensively,

but it's essentially the same group defensively. Yeah. And the difference is they had, you know, obviously all world goaltending from Patrick Demko last year. Yeah. And their penalty kill. Their penalty kill is so bad. It's sort of everything because you see, you know, there was another goal last night.

And I tweeted about it. And it was like every goal, every game last week had at least one of these. And I'm sure, you know, it's been the case all season where you can literally see the seam in their zone coverage breakdown and a guy skates through it. And there's two defensemen on one side. And the third, you know, the low forward is somewhere else. And, you know, Steam's time goes. in this case is Danny by himself.

Right. And that, that part of it has been so sort of mind blowing. And that's on coaching. That's on personnel. You know, and in the end, everything kind of comes home to roost there

because, you know, they can score. Yeah. They're fine. You know, they could, this is a team that could go on a heater in terms of goals in the playoffs and that's what you need to do to make it, right? But the rest is such a disaster. I'm just saying, like,

but I'm just saying, but I'm just, Just saying, like if you're trying to assess what a play, what a team really should be doing. And that's how are, how would they perform in the playoffs? You know, they're not, I mean, they're not getting there because their defense is so terrible. Even if they did, their defense would have been blown out of the water. I mean, here's the reality doesn't matter. If you look at it as I, I've jotted these down because I didn't want to miss any points. Okay.

Thank you. They have no real financial flexibility. No. They can, they can carve some out this summer if they buy out OEL, I believe it saves them like $8 million for next year, six million the year after. Yeah. Well, because remember. remember they only, they retain, like, Arizona retained some.

So, no, I mean, you're right. Next year, they get some flexibility with him. And then they think it's two years on the back. And then I'm not mistaken, it's two years at four. Yeah. And then like a couple more years at two. Yes. Yeah.

So they can create financial flexibility. I guess the question would be to what end? Yeah. One of the worst prospect pools in the league. Oh, yes. My colleagues at elite prospects had them ranked 28th in the league in September. No draft pick surplus. No, yes.

They have six picks this year, six picks next year. Yeah. The previous three years, they made six, six, and five picks. Yeah. 27th in point percentages this year, as I said. And their captain who miraculously exploded offensively this season is on pace for 55 goals. Yeah. Is an impending UFA who will almost certainly be traded.

They're going to have to get rid of them. Yeah. And, and they honestly couldn't afford him even if they wanted to keep it. No. At this point, no. So the reason why you need to bring all of those up is because I think there's an important distinction here to me, right? Like this team, regardless of what they do,

is going to have a high pick, right? So everyone's, everyone's up like, all right, tank for me, of course, no, like, for years now, you're like, oh, well, look at the results. They kind of have been rebuilding. And I think there's an important distinction between losing a lot of games and being bad and falling into that versus purposefully being bad,

accumulating futures, picks, prospects, and like maximizing all the, I guess perks is the best way to say it, of being a bad team, right? Which there are some,

right? One of the negatives is you lose a lot of games and it's demoralizing everyone involved. But there are perks. Like you can take on bad contracts. You can get, nothing matters. So you can try everything you want to. And instead,

that's not, what is happening. I think that is an important point to make. Well, and they can't even, they can't even, they can't, there's no, there's no cap advantage for them to gain, right? They can't, like, they're not even a position to take on bad deals. I mean, they'd have to make, they take on bad deals and deals for, you know, players that they have that other teams want, but you're going to, no, no team that you're

going to, that really you're going to want to trade with that, like, say you trade Beauhorabat, right? Like, in the end, you should be trying to get him to the team that wants him the most, which is a team that's like going somewhere. Which will need to shed a bunch of money in return to. Well, maybe. But like how many teams are actually set up that way? You know, the better teams tend to be set up better.

They don't have a lot of stuff to shed is my point. Right. So, you know, so if you're taking back something ugly, you know, how much are you actually taking back? I don't think it's going to be that much. Or you're not in position to take back that much. Especially more perfect because this contract is so efficient in terms of value for this season. You know, what, what team is really going to be moving out of five?

and a half million dollar deal back that they don't really need. You know, I mean, sure, that's going to exist. But it, my point is is that in the end, this is a team that's stuck in so many ways. And as you said, you know, like, and it goes back. There's a reason why they haven't accrued any of the benefits. You know, I mean, Leas Pedersen and Quinn Hughes were home run great picks. You know, guys probably that probably go higher if you do that draft, those drafts again, right? They nailed those ones, but there's a lot of ones they didn't nail.

And that, again, is part of the whole story of why we're at, where we're at. There's no prospects. you know, all you love you was a bust, Jake Retanan was a bust, you know, they should have, they could have had Matthew Kichuk, they could have had David Pasternak, like all these things that happened that didn't happen. And that's why they are where they are. It was these endless misjudgments. Well, let's not dwell on the past. Let's look forward. But I'm, but I'm, we can't not understand why the four, going forward is so difficult. No, this has been, it's a long time coming. This just does not happen over one one year or one off season, right?

This has been years and years of neglect of poor decisions. which have extended to what they decided to do last off season, by the way. Yes. Like a lot of it still is the heirs of the previous regime. Yeah. I would. Well, yeah, I mean, there was a judgment call made on which forward are we going to keep. And they chose J.T. Miller.

And I mean, he's a good player, but he's not a guy that you're going to be. He's not a player you build around. He's a complimentary player. He's a guy that's good on your power play. He's a good winger. But you can't. That was the part of the press conference that, like, you weren't there. So I can't say.

oh, you should have pressed on this more. But something that really, I think, should have been followed up on more than it was, was Rutherford made the point of, well, we pay J.T. Miller. We cannot. We've already tendered an offer to Bo Horvad that we think is the max and we do this fair. Yeah. We don't want to pay for what he's doing this year. Kind of like you're trying to balance what he's been, right?

Which is, by the way, the right decision. Like, you certainly do not want to be paying for a 55 goal center because that, That's not what he is, right? Yeah. But the way they come to that is, well, we've already paid J.T. Miller. And so we can't pay Boolhoor at more than that. We don't have the flexibility to do so. Miller, who by the way, you signed coming off a career high season.

There was no follow up on, okay, well, let's walk back to then why you got into this position. It was like accepting this is, and I understand it's a sunk cost in the sense that like the deal is signed. It's like, it's crying over. Here you are. But to tell the story of how you're in this position or why it's like so frustrating, we can't improve this team, which is something Rutherford kept saying or like, we haven't done a good enough job. Well, isn't that.

Well, and in the irony was that behind all this was that Rutherford has said more than once you don't want to rush into these things when he was talking about big, long-term deals. And I mean, obviously they could have signed Miller all summer. They could have traded Miller all summer. But he ends up going, well, I guess we'll keep this guy. I mean, that's our best sort of assessment of how it's gone, was that they looked at the two players and they didn't want to go into the season with both of them unsigned.

and they went with the guy that I guess they figured they could sign at that point. It's still strange to me that they went that way because even even in that point like Horvite like you said wasn't on a heater. Yeah. And he wasn't scoring at a 55 goal pace. He was just like a guy that had improved his game a lot. It was like clearly, you know, it was was, you know, progressing well even in his late 20s. And it was a guy that, you know, I think there's a lot of estimable things about him that the team wouldn't want to hang on to. but for whatever reason they didn't judge him in the same way that they judged J.T. Miller,

which is just in the current context, like you said, you really scratch your head. Well, there were many times over the past calendar year in the last season when myself and our good pal, Thomas Drans, would walk our dogs into the Civic Spirit trails and we'd try to, you know, book or a fantasy book what the Canucks should do. acknowledging that they were never going to do any of these things. And I was, I was always pitching him on all of these ideas of trading everyone. Right. Even when, like, getting ahead of it as opposed to where they are now.

And he kept being like, all right, well, I think, I think, like Horat's going to stay because he likes it here. Yeah. He's going to take a hometown.

He's the captain. Yeah. And, and then not only does he kind of price himself out of that in terms of the season he's having, But also, why in his right mind would he take less than he can get to stay here? I think, I mean, I do think there was something to that. I, I, I, he's a guy that this is the place he knows.

I mean, it is like, this is always true, right? Like, you, you really love the first place you find success in, right? Yeah. But you know this professionally. Sometimes you have to move on. Yes. And, um, you know, he's in that window now. Like he's going to end up on, undoubtedly somewhere else.

And he's going to be like, oh, that was a good move. I'm glad I'm trying something different. Yeah. Oh, wow. Playing meaningful games is fun. Yeah, well, exactly. And that was something he and I talked a little bit about last week. Like I wrote a little story about this on the weekend.

It was just like, you know, I'm not trying to like, I wasn't trying to like, you know, play gotcha or anything. You know, because he said, I don't want to talk about my situation. But we were talking about losing and losing and losing and how do you actually maintain team spirit? Because it is, it was always kind of fascinating. And like you'd walk in, you know, obviously there's, J.T. Miller, it's, I hate this. It sucks. Like, losing sucks. After these games, they're in bad mood.

But then you walk in the next day, they have practice. And they'd be, like, trying to build themselves back up. And I was just like, I was curious, how do you guys maintain spirit? Like, what are you guys doing? And it was a bit of what, you know, it was the classic. Well, what else are we going to do? I mean, get up every day and you got to believe and you got to go. And you're like, okay, yeah, but we had a chat about this.

And he talked a little, basically having him, pride in where you are, pride in the jersey, that kind of thing. And I said, obviously, in the big picture, it's hard to ignore you saying this. And he's, he's, you know, he's, he looked at me on, yeah, he's like, I want to be Vancouver Canuck. Like, this place has been important to me. You know, my wife, my kids are born here. Like, you know, it's all that stuff.

You get it. But, you know, deep in the back, he goes, it's probably, I mean, he didn't say this, but you know when deep in the bank is probably over. I thought, well, I thought where that was headed was you're going to be like, how do you maintain team spirit? And then he was going to be like, we don't. Have you watched us play? Yeah, that's why you asked the question, right?

Yeah. But, you know, in the end, it's, yeah, I mean, in the end, one day they'll be like, no, team shirt was terrible. We couldn't win. We couldn't play defense. The manager was yelling at the coach. Well, and, okay, so let's segue here to coaching. Yeah.

Because I think this is, okay, first of all, this is what I want to say. I think what they're doing to Bruce right now is, is embarrassing. Mm-hmm. Like, can you imagine? And I understand the NHL is entirely different. You can't compare it to like your, your, your, mine or your job, right? Logic never applies. But normal logic.

On like a regular basis, your boss coming out and talking openly and publicly about your replacement. And not even like hypothetically. Yeah. It's, it really is a matter of when, not if. Yeah. Like that, that phrase is overused. That really applies. Yeah.

It really is. Yeah. You have all right. I don't know if it's going to be a week or two weeks. like it's happening. And it's like, meanwhile, this guy has to come in every day and answer media questions

and do his job. Then you have Rick Tockett on TNT last night with like the most awkward minute of television I think I've ever seen with him reiterating he has not signed a contract. Yeah, yeah. But has been talking to Jim Rutherford. Yeah.

And not that anyone should be treated this way, but Bruce is a well-liked, well-respected. He's had a great coach in the league who amongst coaches with like 300 NHL regulars in games

or something is like fifth in point percentage or something like that for his career he's got this among the six hundred guys

who have 600 wins he has the second best after Scotty Bowman yeah and has done it in multiple stops yeah including most recently in Vancouver

yeah last year where they were pretty pretty quick and eager and willing to embrace Bruce there it is Bruce, there it is. And, you know, Bruce, let's be clear. Bruce has never had a losing season.

Yeah. You know, um, he had, I think a 500 season. If I remember in like Mississippi, but like his, his career has been nothing but upward. And, and you could see, you know, essentially, I mean, the process was bizarre and it's still bizarre and there's still, long stories I'm sure to be written about how everything happened last year. But you could see why he would be a choice to make a short term fix.

to be like, you know, I think this team is better than it's shown. Maybe he can make a difference. Because he's won and he literally, and jazzes up the players and, you know, I think the story, part of the story last year that without getting into details was, I think, you know, in the end, Bradshaw actually got something to do. And I think he made a big difference. But, you know, he's gone and we can see the difference.

But yeah, I mean, Bruce has had an incredible career. You know, he is, I mean, everyone deserves to be treated with respect, right? And he has been nothing but professional. He keeps showing up. He keeps trying to figure out the problem. The way things have played out. I mean, really since before,

was it the Hall of Fame? Like, it was that week. It was before the Knox went into Toronto. And Brotherford was on the radio and went off. And I followed up with him. And I wrote a sort of a second story on it. He'd be like, what are we talking about?

And then my colleague Ben Kuzma, like talk to him in Toronto. And it was just like, okay, wow. And you're like, okay, are they just going, they can't just keep going forward. Like, they're going to have to make a change, surely. But they didn't. And now we're here and we're in this bizarre position where, you know, last week, like, I'm on the road trip.

And, you know, you see Bruce every day. And he knows. Like, he doesn't say it, but he knows what's coming. And it's just, yeah, it's just, it's not fair to anyone to put him in that spot. And it's so outside the norm, there's just so many other elements in this story that we're, we still don't know that we're still trying to figure out because it doesn't make sense. Like this has never been, as far as I understand,

Jim Rutherford's never really gone on his guy like this before. And so you're going, is Jim Rutherford trying to do something. I mean, I mean, we all remember in Vancouver, might kill us going on the radio and basically, you know, going after John Tortorella

and then being fired three days later, basically, or whatever it was. Yeah. You know, and so you kind of can't help but think, okay, is this the same thing playing out here? but I just not sure

like it's just it is so there's so many weird elements to it um that the talk it thing on TV doesn't it it just sort of feels normal at this point because no that was not normal but that's what I mean that's how bizarre things are it wasn't normal at all but that's how

that's how bizarre things are I mean you know Bruce's has handled it at least publicly like in a very graceful manner well I would be at like like I imagine he must be furious because it's embarrassing. Yeah.

It's like they're hanging out to dry. It's really just like a waiting game, right? And do you have any theory, intel talking to people of why this is happening? I mean, my best guess is the one that's out there. And I mentioned, I mentioned on the weekend as well, is that we know that there was a a meeting of some kind in Vegas a couple weeks ago where Rick Target lives. and if you extrapolate four weeks from that, which is supposedly the exit clause in his contract,

that brings us to the All-Star game. Now, you know, you can get out of these things, right? So the idea that it's only, that it's ironclad four weeks, you're like, okay, they can get out of these things. So then you're going, okay, well, is it a question of money? Like, I don't, these are questions I have. I don't have answers, but is it a question of money? Like is it just slightly cheaper to get him out of that in four weeks time?

Like, is it that? Is it, I mean, it doesn't make any other sense because in the end, you, like, Bruce knows he's done. Everyone knows he's done. Yeah. Why are we, why are we having this lingering thing? I mean, it is, it is to the conoxus benefit to, to not have success over the course of the rest of the season.

Yes. So why would you change? Why would you bring in a new coach? Well, the fourth, the four weeks thing doesn't make sense to me. I think you're right. to be skeptical of that because, I mean, I'd be stunned that he didn't have more wiggle room in his media deal that he signed to begin with. Right. To have such a impediment.

Because in a normal circumstance with a normal organization, who is in season waiting four weeks to make a coaching change? You know what I mean? It's like once you, once it's clear that you're making a coaching change, it's like, yeah, the current coach you have is gone. Maybe you have an interim in the meantime. but it's pretty clear what you're doing. Yeah. There's a protection. It's a protection closet to hire someone in season.

Yeah, no, it's a protection clause in his contract just to cover the, you know, basically you can't just walk out the door and it's like that. There's a cost. Right. Yeah. That's all that is. That'll be bad business for T&T to stand in his way. You know what I mean?

To prevent him for people. We like, we think you're better on air. Yes. Yeah. I think they can replace him. I think it's okay. Um, okay. You're replaceable, Rick.

We can't, we can't possibly let you go. Yeah. Let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back, we'll keep talking about the Canucks here with Patrick Johnson. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming the Sportsnet Radio Network. We're back here on the PDO cast. My guy, Patrick Johnson. PJ, so he made a good point there before we went on.

Finally. Here's the thing. Yeah, finally. So let's play out of the timeline here. I don't, what I don't understand is if you identify, Okay, let's work under the assumption that you blame Bruce Boudreau for the Canucks' inability to win games this season. Sure. Which I'm highly acceptable because there's clearly massive personnel flaws.

And like I said, I think even a great coach would have this team playing at like the 23rd best point in percentage. Now, they are, as you mentioned, they're giving up the second most goals, only ducks give up more goals. Rick Talk is kind of known as more of like a defensive coach who's going to instill. structure and coverage and have better schemes and all that. And in theory, that is a need for this team, right? It's like, all right, how do we improve? Our offense is pretty good. You need to get better defensively, stingier.

Why would you, what is the motivation to do this now? Because if you believe Bruce Boudreau is the reason you're losing and is not a good enough coach for this team, wouldn't you want to keep that status quo for this year? Like, the team's lost eight of ten games, right? They cannot lose enough between now and game 82. You're doing amazing. Yeah. Keep going out there, doing your thing.

Yeah. Let's not change anything. Why mess with a winning formula? In this case, a losing formula. Yeah. And so beyond the issues of, all right, we've already had this coach in place, we're going to replace him. Why not wait till the off season, do your due diligence, run the proper process,

and then act accordingly. And if you decide at that point, you do all the interviews, you do everything, figure everything out. Rick Tocke, it is our best choice. Do it then. I don't know, I just, I do not understand the motivation if it's such a toxic situation where you're like, we just cannot have Bruce Boodroar anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Just like promote an assistant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. I have a hard time buying that that's at all in play that everyone's, you know, at each other's throats. And, you know, it's an impossible situation. Even if it were, who wants to come into that mid-season.

It is a very strange process. I mean, the other thing about Tocke is he's had one, one winning season in this, you know, the five, five years he's coached in the NHL. Like,

I just, I don't, it's a very strange to me, very strange process. This is one of those ones where I often try to remind people, this is hockey and normal logic never applies. No, well, that's the purpose of this show is to try to figure out what's going on. Yeah, no, no, I know.

But I'm just saying, but I'm just saying you can't. That's not a satisfying answer. No, no, I'm not. It's not my answer. It's part of my, uh, yes. It's part of my preamble. Right. You have to remember that like,

A to B to C in normal life does not, it's not how you can assess that. Right. Applying common sense might not, if the, if the party involved is not working from that perspective. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, there is this perception, certainly that they need, I mean, it's not a perception.

It's reality. They do need to be better defensively. Rick target system has done better defensively. And so I come back to that theory, okay, maybe it is in the end about, you know, this idea, well, we can just stop Pucks better. We can, we can, we can sort of punch our way out of this. And you're like, punch your way out of what? Yeah. And it is, it is, it is, it's not obvious to me, this is a decision that needs to be made right now.

because like I said, Rick Talkett, I mean, obviously he's a well-known guy to certainly this management team from his days in Pittsburgh. And he's a guy that certainly talks the game, if you will. Right. But that's, I mean, that's a pretty common thing in hockey. Well, I don't know. I've watched a lot of TNT. No, but I'm just saying he talks the game. Right, right, right.

I'm not saying that means it's, like, accurate. Right, right, right. Okay. But he talks the game. Yes. But in the end, is it like, is this, this is the candidate? I mean, it's not the first time that we have to come back. Okay, what do we actually know?

This isn't the first time that they'll have hired someone where it's kind of like, well, no, we know him. You know, half of the-of- That's, I mean, in fairness, that's how the league operation. Sure, yeah. You know, sure. But in terms of hiring your coach. Yeah. Um, you know, in theory, if you got to the end of the year, there are more options.

And, uh, whether that's in the league or more broadly. And, um, it doesn't surprise me that at the end of the day, the, the inclination is to do what generally hockey does, which is to stick with someone safe and someone you know, um, whether or not they're the best candidate doesn't seem to matter. So yeah, I, I, I, I, the only other thing I can think of when looking at, you know, um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, at why make the change now is a little bit why I look at Vasilipa Colson and Niels Holgland are getting farmed out and there's a little bit of an element of, okay, these are a couple of young guys that we think are going to be important for us going

forward. Let's put them in a different environment. Let's let them find some confidence and get them essentially away from the disaster that's going on right now. So you bring in a new coach and at least you give them a chance to help you assess what you need and what you don't have and what, you know, who can go and who can stay. that's my sort of best guess at this point as that's why you're making a change now

because otherwise it's just like you said you would be better off just continuing to circle the drain and try to lose as many games you can the way you're losing right now. Well, Peach, I hate to break it to you, but if your goal is to improve defensively and quickly at that,

you're probably not going to be entrusting and enabling your youngest players to play meaningful roles and putting them in a position to develop properly. Well, I mean, at the same time too, though, I mean, you can't do any worse than you're doing, so.

Well, sure. I just, I, okay, to get out ahead of this, like when Rick Tawket comes in, they're going to win some games. That is how this works, right? There's a dead cat bounce. Yeah, absolutely. We saw it last year with this Canucks team. Absolutely. New Boys comes in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a little, you know, kind of

initial spike. Yeah. And I also believe, like, listen, Bruce isn't infallible. Like throughout his career, he's been very successful. Yeah. Not the best tactician. No. Right?

Much more of a, of a vibes kind of dealing with, dealing with people, guy, as opposed to getting bogged down in details, particularly in the defense. Yeah. And that's been an issue for this team. So there's certain things in terms of like coverage, providing support, communication, guys not double covering one player while Stephen Sang was white open in front of the net. that they can certainly do. Yeah, yeah. But when you look at the personnel, particularly in the blue line of this team

where you could make a fair case, like one of the bottom three to five, blue lines in the league, despite how much money they're paying for the guys. That's where these deep-rooted issues keep coming to me from, right? So it's one of those things where it's almost like putting lipstick on a pig in the sense that you can come in with a better message and better schemes,

but if you have guys who can't string together passes out of their own zone, you're going to keep scrambling defensively, you're going to keep playing as an uphill battle. And so ultimately keep coming back to, what are you trying to accomplish here? To me, it's also a reminder of a thing I often like to say, which is that coaching can do a lot more to hurt your team than help your team.

And if you look at Boudreau's successful, he had a lot of success in Minnesota and a lot of success in Anaheim and both those teams had fantastic defense scores. Right. And this team does not. Yeah. And that, to me, more than anything,

is why, changing your coach at this point, especially at this point, it's just shifting deck chairs. It's just, it fundamentally isn't going to solve the problem because even if Tocke comes in and he somehow resets things and they aren't leaving Steve Stamco's by himself from the side of the yes, they get better at that part. You know, in, in sort of his career that has come under a cost, which is that you're not going to score as much offensively. And so then you're still nowhere.

You know, you're not a better team. You're just letting up, you're giving up fewer goals, but you're also scoring fewer. So you've now gone from a sort of borderline top third offense to, you know, somewhere in the mushy middle. And your defense is still not that great. Well, and I would also argue that, you know, clearly like the offensive talent is a strong suit. And you see that in the generation numbers versus the suppression numbers, of course. Yeah. I'm not arguing that.

But for all the talk early in the year about the issues for this club blowing, big leads early and we saw a key example against the penguins in a recent game. Also, a lot of these games have been these game environments where they go down four or five nothing. Yeah. And then the other team takes their foot off the pedal.

Yeah. And then score effects kicks in. Yeah. And then they score a few goals like they did against Tampa Bay. Yeah. And all of a sudden, if you're not paying close enough attention, it's like, oh, whoa, they're actually pretty close. And look, the offense is doing really well.

And it's like, I don't think that's necessarily representative. Like I don't think it's a matter of if you tighten up a few things in terms of coverage and then the offense is going to stay just as good. That's probably going to come at a cost to the offense for a variety of reasons. And so it's that kind of like seesaw trying to find the right balance between the two forms. But I don't know. I'm I think this is so much more of a talent thing. You don't need to convincing, of course, but I'm just, it's totally talent. It's skill sets and talent And type of players they have

Exactly Like the personnel and stylistically They're just not like the foot speed The foot speed I mean they can't Yeah I mean it's really sad It's been really tough to watch Oliver Ekman Larson this year

Because he was manageable last year He was fine He put up some points He wasn't amazing but he was okay But he can't defend the rush And you've seen multiple cases Where he's tweaked his knee You can tell like he

Whether he's dealing I don't think he's dealing With him specific I mean he had meniscus surgery four years ago. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, obviously I'm not an elite athlete, but I had a similar injury.

And I can see when he has tweaked it, this sort of overwhelming kind of a throb, the throbbing pain that exists. And it just, it's not, you know, he wants to play. He insists he still loves playing. But it's been tough to watch. And then, of course, he's been, you know, he's been with Myers,

and Myers has had a terrible season. It's just been a mess. It's been an absolute mess. and reeds have been bad. They haven't been able, they can't break out. You know, it's, it's fun to watch Ethan Bear play hockey 75% of the time. But then he, you know, because he goes back and collects the puck. He's making some pretty good decisions.

But he never skates the puck out, you know, so they, he keeps trying to pass it. And if he's with Hughes, that's fine because Hughes will skate the puck out. But they have nobody even skate the puck out. Yeah. You know, it's, it's these constant efforts to try to make these long, long, long breakouts work. And it's just, it's a really low, you know, low percentage way to play.

Yeah. And, yeah, it's kind of all summed up right there. It's just you can't. And the fact that in the end that they are giving up even more chances against this year than they were last year. And last year they had a bad rap as a defensive team. And the year before that, they have a bad rap. And last year was worse than the year before that in the COVID season. It's just, it's been a, it's just an absolutely bizarre experience because you know these guys are professionals.

And you know that they're, you know, near the, near the peak of the game. And to keep having, see them keep making the same errors, the same problems speaks to sort of a lack of talent and, you know, deployment challenges. But there's no alternatives. There's just no alternatives in this team to do anything differently. Yeah. I have it here. They've trailed for 42% of their time on ice this season. Right.

And I imagine I don't have the numbers in front of me of how many of those minutes were spent like with multi-goal deficits as opposed to just like being within one within striking distance. But the only teams we've trailed for more. P.J. The Black Ox, the Blue Jackets, the Ducks and the Canadians. It's, and so that- Those are bad teams. Those are bad teams. But at least with a lot of those teams, they're bad on purpose. Right.

Yeah. No, exactly. And that's, that, that is the thing that there's a self-conception here that this is why I do also wonder and people keep asking about how much was ownership involved because the self-conception from the top is that, well, we were a playoff team. And that they keep, I mean, this has been going on for almost a decade. It's keep throwing the same stuff against the wall.

Maybe we'll be better next year. You know, we've signed, well, okay, did we make the, did we make a big splash and free agency? Did we sign a guy? Do we trade for someone? And that's so much of it is, is trying to be at the forefront of the conversation and believing that's what puts you at the forefront of the conversation,

that you make big splashes as opposed to, are you consistently playing well as your team progressing? Are you draft, are you actually drafting, developing players as opposed to saying that that's what you're doing? Yeah. And that has been a sort of cultural issue, I think, from the top for quite a long time. In that there's an endless desire to go after quick fixes. And in this league, it's more than ever, the kind of ability to go out and sign guys just to fix your lineup.

As you kind of used to be able to do, like 20, 25 years ago, you just can't do that anymore. Because at the end of the day, and we're seeing it right now, you hamstring yourself into cap-structured problems that are almost unfixable. Yeah. You know, they thought they could try Tyler Myers when they came in. They tried. We're now, you know, we have now have the president saying, you know, we've tried to move all these trades. Well, you know who's talking about. And it's things like that.

They haven't been able to get out from under because other teams are like, why am I picking this guy up? What are you going to do for me? And it can actually like, well, we can't afford to do anything for you. And so here we are. Yeah. Well, part of that press conference, Rutherford also did make sure to clarify that there hasn't been any ownership metling. And it never seemed the way, which is a very normal thing that. someone running a team constantly has to say about...

I don't know how it goes in other places. You know, I can only comment on what goes on here. I guarantee you that is not a conversation that happens in a lot of markets. There's an overall theme of a desire to play playoff games, to take shortcuts. Yes. To, in the end, you know, in the end, find managers that will go along with what you want. I don't know if that's where Jim Rutherford is at. He doesn't have the reputation of that.

He was a guy that ran, you know, he ran Hartford and Carolina. basically by himself for a long time and you know hit the wall a little bit but i mean it was it was kind of amazing being there on sunday and looking you go down the hallway from the elevator to the press box and there's all these photos of the teams you know that that palmerie's team 20 years ago that's kind of fluked into the final the team that won the cop in 06 some of the star players they've had since um you know it's not like it's a team that's been you know consistently at the top, but they're back at the top. And now it's a team that's run with a conoclastic owner who, um, you know, is pushing the boundaries in a lot of different directions, but he's found

a good formula. I mean, you look at the people that work there. Like, is Eric Tolstkin going to stick around if he's not enjoying what they're doing and isn't like believing what they're doing? I certainly got offers to go elsewhere. But he's also a guy that in, I mean, in real life, like, this is the era we're now moving into with hockey where it's not all hockey men. It's guys who can do other things. Of course. And they can move along and do something else. And, and, And so, you know, you look at the success they're having. And there's so many lessons that. There's an old lesson, which was, you know, in the old days,

how you could kind of make things work. And it was a small market and it wasn't a team that had a lot of noise around it. So there was not as much of the sort of the instant pressure. There was pressure to build a market to build a fan base to attract people to play exciting hockey to win. Right? Yeah. That was the fundamental pressure. And that was, you know, and that's, that is the pressure that everyone faces.

But in the end, it was an owner that said, okay boss go to work and brotherford had a lot of success and then he ends up in Pittsburgh where obviously he has like generational talents in front of them and I can certainly sit there and think okay I can see why he looks at this team and says I mean I don't have Sidney Crosby but maybe I have McGinie Malkin and Crystal Tang you know and those are things you can build yourselves around like you can see why he would look from afar and say okay maybe this is something but then you come in and you find out all the other bits and pieces and all the pressures that are involved.

And as much as you may want to say, I mean, it's the first question, one of the first questions asked Jim, you know, how do you, how do you, what are your expectations from ownership? He's going to be talking to me. He expects that.

But in the end, it's also the philosophy and we've seen enough, and I've written about this. And there's just enough around the edges that it's just, it's a tough place to be. And we've seen the results. The results have not been good.

Well, when you bring up the pressure there, I guess one final point I did want to make before we sign out was you, you see this all the time, right? Every time the Canucks are in the news, for whatever reason, it becomes a talking point of like, oh, it's a difficult market. It's, you're under a lot of pressures. And I just, I totally refuse that notion.

No, I mean, it's completely, it's baseless. It's a snowball off, like, repeated bad results, right? Well, PJ, if any. People want, they want to see something different, which is a good team, not a team that's constantly falling short. Well, I mean, I would argue that people have been way too patient and forgiving in this market. Possibly.

No, definitely. Think about it. Think about how. I think we talk a lot about this. I guess I say this from standpoint that we talk about this. There's a lot of people that saying, listen, this is not good. It should be better. Yeah.

Right? There's no reason for it. It used to be good. There's reasons why it was good. Why, you know, you should not be ignoring these lessons. There are a large, there's still lots of people that just want to go to a game and have, oh, maybe they win, maybe they lose. So, you know, sure, you can criticize That's what the casuals are

And they're still leaning in on that They're not people show up Oh, okay But I think they're going to start running out of those people Well, in this year They've had 20 home games Yeah They've had five regulation

Which was 20 Every of them have come against California teams Like it's There's not been much that year for There's not That's why it's reaching a point Because people are understandably Getting more and more

Fed up and Yeah And kind of disillusioned by like, wow I think it's not good enough The market is finally, it is, I mean, sure, people could have started feeling this way. There's a lot of reasons. I think around, obviously, the pandemic summit, you know, people working from home, a lot more people living further from the city than used to.

Um, but if the team were winning, people would make an effort. And I hear from people who ever, you know, who have boxes or whatever. And they're just like, it's really hard to get get people in now because it's the show's just not there because of what you just said. And I think that is the one thing that I, I keep thinking about is that the market, where it finally seems to have landed and it's not a positive space, you know. But, but that's, but that's, but that's, but that's always. That's fair though, right? No, that's, but that's what I mean, but that's what they've always, but we have,

I guess I'm going back to what you're saying, well, people should have been harder. I'm sure people should have been harder. It could have been harder. But people in the end for a long time, well, you know, they, well, you know, they, uh, they'll maybe they'll win. Maybe they'll win. And now it's like, no, they're not. And people aren't enjoying it and it's not a good experience.

Like, I know people who are generally have been, like, pessimistic and cynical about the state of the organization that during the bubble playoffs even when they were winning games against the golden nights where they were being outshot like 45 to 20 it's like clearly not a sustainable formula we're enjoying the ride and that's part of being a fan of course right but when that's not happening when you're losing it's a lot more difficult to become emotionally attached and I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't like it this perception of oh, it's a difficult place to run a team is just an excuse. Like it's not found in reality because if you compare it to other hockey markets,

it's not really. Like people have generally been pretty, pretty lenient in terms of supporting whatever Jim Benning did for years as like, oh, well, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure this is coming from a good place, even when the results would clearly indicate that it wasn't. It's not even supporting, not even have any opinion. Like, I'll go to the game. It's like, I love the team. And so stick around with it.

lost, that's too bad. And so, yeah, I, I don't know. I just, I get so, so irritated. I'm totally with you. Like, I'm not, I'm not a fan. I don't even cover the team. I do a national show, but I live here in Vancouver and I talk to people and I'm aware of what's going on and I just don't, I don't buy that as an argument.

You experience it. You don't cover the game. You still experience it. Well, I watch, I've watched a lot of Canucks this here. You can't help it. So, yeah, man, well, okay, this was, uh, it was lovely. This was fun. It was great to catch up.

I'll let you, I'll let you promote some stuff, let people know where, uh, because you haven't been on the show in a while. That's true. I want you to let people know where they can check you out, what you've been working on. Well, the province.com for one. Yeah. Stupid Twitter thing.

Do we still talk about that? I'm so fed up with it. At rising action. I'm also on Mastodon and post. It's a Facebook page if you want. It's linked on my page. Yeah, no, just doing that. And I go, I do show up another podcast.

I'm sure I'm not allowed to mention, but. Well, it's good to, it's good to, it's good. I'm glad to be back. It was really fun. It was fun to be here. And happy to talk hockey. and, you know, I'm like, yeah. What are you working on?

Because you were on the road for a while. Oh, my God. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, um, I had a nice chat with Brock Bester. I think I'm going to put up later this week. Nice. Talking about, you know, because he's a guy that, obviously, things have gone sideways a little bit for him. Another guy that really likes, you know, has loved a being of Vancouver Canock.

But is a, I think, a crossroads in his career. And we'll see, you know, obviously the agents, his agent has been authorized to try to find a trade. We'll see what happens. I think, I don't think anything's changed. changed in that regard. You know, a guy who I think has become a better hockey player than people realize. But at the same time, especially the last couple seasons, I think his foot speeds become an issue and, or at least perceived as an issue.

Yeah. No, it's been an issue. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I mean, yeah, he's, but he's a good dude and he's actually scoring some goals and he's been scoring some sort of gritty, greasy goals. Yeah. And so just kind of looking at that and saying, okay, you know, What's where does this go?

You know, is he, is he a guy that teams might all of a sudden go, okay, you know, different environment? Is there a way to use him or is he just going to have to, you know, because I think, when you hear Jim Rutherford talk about buyouts, you start going, okay, who are the candidates? And we've talked about one. And so you wonder about a guy like Brock Besser, even though, you know, he is kind of producing. He's in there. But he's not a guy.

He's become clear he's not a guy that you're going to build anything around. He's a guy that you know, it's handy have on your team. Yeah. I think he's kind of played himself in this weird place where it suits everyone involved to try their hardest to rebuild him. Yes, sure. Right? Like, there's no trade value. Wingers, no.

With term and money left on their deals. Yeah. Like, you cannot get anyone to take them. Yeah. Like, yeah. It's just the reality of the current financial landscape. And so he's stuck here. So they may as well.

Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm out. I'm like, okay. Where are we actually at? So anyway, that's something that's coming up, I think. And what else? I'm trying to think. That was the biggest thing I had in the bag.

There was one or I think I'm drawing a complete blank on. But I've been working on. Oh, actually, no, I have a lovely story coming out. I'm not sure quite. I've got to get it done. Maybe it'll wait until all-star break. But the 2011 Canada winner games, boy, you know, U-18 boys hockey, gold medal game.

Team BC won the gold medal, led by Curtis Lazzar who broke Steve Stamcoast's Canada Winter Games goal scoring record and Sidney Crosby's Canada winner games point scoring record and he was the star so I had a nice chat with him there's a couple other Kyle Burroughs was on the team and playing for team Ontario who I believe lost in the semifinal to BC was Bo Horvatt and Spencer Martin so I've got a nice little story nice. Nice okay just some fun well looking forward to that see Pige this was a blast gonna have you back on my only plug is go smash that five star button wherever you listen to the show, help support the PDO cast.

Thank you for listening to another episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more. I've got a fun one, actually. I've got Peter, we're watching on the TVs here in the studio. We've got a replay of Avs, Flames, going on from last night. I've got the Avs are in town here on Friday. I've got Peter Bauer coming in. Love Peter.

I just wrote a book about the abs and how they won their Stanley Cup. So we're going to do a little book review and talk about lessons from that and kind of putting that all together. So look forward to that tomorrow. I think Peter's top five, like, top five, like top five most enthusiastic people. So nice. What a good dude.

So earnest and nice. I love Peter. Looking forward to that. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network.