Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Fuck off to step
on, stay lots. Here's your hosts, Jesse Soup Here and Victor Nuno
Fantasy Hockey Live. We're back, Victor Nuno, Jesse Severe. Ready to
talk some Vancouver Canucks. Victor, how you doing today? I'm doing awesome,
Jesse. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk Canucks. They have some
pretty good fantasy assets and some pretty strong performances this year. I think we
need to dig in and figure out if these are going to continue or what's
going on with them. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm
doing great. It's it's a wonderful time of year. You're listening to us
in the past, but we still are not done with the Stanley Cup playoffs
and you're probably listeners are a little bit further along. But that's just how
life is going to go. But yeah, Victor, I'm I'm fired up.
I'm ready for getting on team previews and getting to all in. The
draft is coming up. The draft is heating up, Victor, and so
is the Patreon. Why don't you tell people why those two things are like
chocolate and peanut butter in terms of going together. Now I'm hungry thanks to
a lot. Yeah, now are it's good stuffed over there in the Patreon.
I know some people have been asking me, like where can I find
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hits, blocks, things like that? That we have all that you just
that we just needed you. We just asked you contribute a little bit because
it is a lot of work to put it together. So it is behind
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team ranks, like each team we have ranked who the top prospects are,
with more information about them in terms of when their arrival is, like upside
for points, hits, shots, blocks, all that kind of stuff,
including twenty twenty three ranks. I know those are Yeah, those might shift
a little bit, but we got those all in there and goalies. So
I've been been refining these as we go through the team previews and all through
the offseason. They'll be more and more and so you can check all that
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Fan Hockey Life is me. Victor Nuno twelve VI C t O R and
U n O one two is how to find mister Victor. It's Sun.
It's time to go talk Canucks with with our guy Patrick, Patrick Johnston.
So right after this we're gonna talk Vancouver Canucks. We'd like to welcome a
man who is willing to talk some Vancouver Canucks with us. It's Patrick Johnson.
It's not that bad from the Province dot com ready to talk Knucks.
How you doing, Patrick? I think that's well put, willing, ready
and willing, because if you spend any time how trying. This team has
been at times obviously lots of exciting stuff. But when you've only been in
the playoffs a couple of times in the decade, it's you got accept reality,
which is this team hasn't been good enough. Too much of the has
not been good enough often enough that we're sitting here looking at another playoff last
season and watching all these teams with all kinds of narratives that are Canucks related.
They didn't draft Matthew Kuchuck but they could have, and things like that,
Yeah, we're doing okay, all right. I have said before,
I've thought many times that if the NHL kept stats of a team's ratio of
drama and fan based consternation divided by standings points, the Knucks would be at
the top. There is so much stress going on in Vancouver, and I
don't want to just because they're not a laughing stock, but there is always
a lot of anks coming from the Pacific Northwest. And that said, there
were some good things and we want to talk about them as well as the
challenges from this season. The Canucks started slow again, the coach was fired
again, the team went on a late run again, and they ended with
a fourteen five and two record from March fourth, tied for second in shutout
six That was a surprise to me, but the league's worst penalty kill seventy
one point six percent. On the other hand, the most shorthanded point four
or points that shorthanded points for it's a weird stat. How about the most
shorthanded goals that's fifteen or a second second shorthand points fifteen. League's fourth best
shooting percentage, but the second we're saved percentage, So no boring goalie duels
and Rogers arena. Everybody could shoot. Twelve players on this team have contracts
the four plus million, which seems aggressive on the middle class anyway. I
guess Patrick would have builds too. Was this season just a deja vu of
the year before, or to Canucks watchers see some improvement coming around the corner?
Well that's two. I would say there's almost two questions. There wasn't
deja vu? No, not really, not quite the same because last year
that they had this great Bruce Brudeau comes in and they just reel off.
I think they're undefeated news first eight games eight games and had a great push
to the playoffs and almost made it. And to the point where it was
it was getting a bit silly, like they wouldn't quite their hopes and you
thought, was I think ten years ago their hopes were over. But then
they've kept winning and then all the teams around them not winning. There was
just I think we went into the last week where it was like they had
to pull off this like inside straight and then everyone else had to like they
had the bomb and whatever, and it almost happened. It was ridiculous.
There was that sort of energy. Okay, they have changed the coach,
there are a lot of it was they were getting outstanding coltending. When they
finally changed the coach here in late January, it was over. Like everyone
knew they like they knew it wasn't happening. And the GM Patrick Alvian said,
no, like realistic. I asked him at the time. We're one
week into Rick Talkeet's tenure and they're shutting down Elia m Kayev and I'm just
like, you know what, why now? And he goes, we're twenty
nine from the league or whatever. They were twenty seventh, and they were
near the bottom in all kinds of categories. And he wasn't just saying points.
He said, look at all the trends. The idea that we're somehow
going to snap our fingers and start playing well enough to make the playoffs is
ludicrous. There wasn't that. There was obviously the late season run, which
kind of drove everyone crazy, because they were at one point since or a
fifth, sixth from the bottom with pretty good lottery odds. And it's not
just about winning the lottery. It's about just the fact that if you dropped
in the top five or six or seven, you know, the kind of
player getting is very different than the kind of player you're getting from eleven or
even There's been some noise lately that maybe they'll have to do a good deal
with Chicago for the nineteenth packtraight back to nineteen. Obviously, there's a big
difference between picking six and nineteen, and you look at this team and what
they do need. Obviously they've got a very good high end, but they
need a lot of other gaps to fill, and the idea of getting another
exciting young defenseman or you might get like you might get at eleven or even
at five, or a young, exciting forward. Obviously, there's a deep
draft here that kind of drove people crazy. But in a way, the
deja vu element here, there is a bit of that, whereas that they're
saying next year is going to be the year we make the playoffs because they
really believe that. I don't know, to be honest in hint, I
don't know how much they believe that. They said, listen, look how
well the team played. Look at well the goalie played. And the goalie
play is a huge part of this season story because the first half of the
year that cheer Demco was terrible and for I think we've got into it.
I think he got away from himself mentally. He was he had a pretty
i think in hindsight, pretty significant surgery coming out a last season on his
leg. He just didn't look himself in the first half of the year,
and then he got hurt. He pulled his grond basically and was out for
two months. And he came back and he was like he was like a
new man, like he was refreshed, like he just there was a new
attitude. I wrote a story about them about him late in the year.
I do think I talked to him a little bit about it. I do
think he found out that he and his wife found out they were gonna have
a kid. That often does change your mentality, like you get a kind
of your eyes open up to everything else. And he came back with a
new purpose, like he was the goalie that we've seen more than anything since
he broke into the league four years ago. And you know, that's that's
the thing they going next year. Last year it was like, look,
how while we played down the stretch and we got a coach that got the
players energized. But I think a lot a lot of cases were like how
well were they actually playing? They could score and they had a good goalie,
but there were a lot of defensive issues. But then the problem was
this year, coming into the training camp, they were a mess. Their
defensive play was terrible, and they just they could break the puck out.
And then they changed coaches and they changed in personnel, and Ali were Eckman
Larson got hurt, and more than more than anything, they had to play
a couple of other guys. There were a couple of other injuries and just
it was a addition, almost by subtraction. They brought in a bunch of
Bell guys, vaguely familiar games like Christian will land in right. But that
shouldn't be the magic cure. And yet they all of a sudden, we're
breaking the puck out better. And some of that was down to coaching and
some of the system stuff that Rick Talking and his assistant coach Adam Foot were
really driving home. We saw marginal improvements down the stretch, and so now
they're going into next year going, well, hey, next year, we're
gonna make the playoffs because of all these things we saw late in the season.
So it's a little bit of a fool me once, shame on me,
foomy twice. We're now maybe in the floomy shame on you kind of
thing, or shame on you now we're in the middle of the shame on
me situation potentially. I do look at this team, and I'm sure we're
going to talk about this because we're talking about how many points these guys are
gonna get. I do think this team isn't I don't think you're unreasonable for
them to think they should be a playoff team. Look at how good their
top end talent is, but they do have to figure some stuff around the
edges to truly compete and make it and make it in the Pacific Division next
season. Yeah, that's an awesome overview. Let's talk a little bit about
some of the individual guys, because yeah, there's definitely some fun ones talk
about here. We're gonna start with Elias Patterson EP forty and he had an
amazing season, finally hit that century mark. I think a lot of us
thought he could get there, but even on this sort of down team.
And we're gonna quote some ranks because Jess and I do preseason ranks. I
had him around the forty seventh. He had around fifty six, so we
were around fifty and he ended up the twelfth best forward in Fantasy. We
had him as a tier two guy going in last year. This year,
we've changed our mind a little, had moved him up to a tier one
And besides the offense, he was actually really good defensively, which is not
hasn't always been the case for him, at least in terms of his expectacles
against P sixty and I would say making this jump from seventy sixty seventy points
the last couple of seasons two hundred and five, A lot of his metrics
really are not out of line. Is shooting percentage was actually a bit below
his care average. PDO was slightly high, but he tends to rock a
pretty high one. His IP was slightly high, and I think one of
the big things at the time when ice went up about two minutes, so
that was something that could sustain. Just looking trying to poke holes here on
what might not be able to continue, because I think we all want this
is the big question. Is Elias Petterson gonna be in the hundred point club
moving forward? Yeah? I think he is the player that we saw coming
into training. He hadn't had a proper training camp last season, he had
his contract situation. Him and Quinn used were both holding out, but he
came in like fresh prepped. Like you can just see he was bigger and
strong. He's twenty twenty three now, yeah, twenty three, he's you
know, he's growing, getting that man strength and and just physically you could
just see he was really looking strong and just in a good way. There
There are a lot of stories in this town going way back, but of
guys who came in who had bulked up too much. And I don't think
anybody looked at him and said they just you looked at him, You're like,
okay, he's looking ready. And right from the start he was dominant.
He was a guy that we always knew the talent, but it was
the ability to dominate opponents and and and because of that, it was not
a shock to see him scoring. And it's interesting you mentioned about the shooting
percentage. One of the reasons that was down probably was he couldn't buy a
goal on the power play for the longest time. It took him forever,
took him to January to get his first power play goal. In the season,
he was putting up points and their powerplay was mostly humming along. That
was the other thing is that a lot of the other their power play was
scoring at one point that it's a power play that has potential. It has
been top five in the league and to the point where he is a difference
maker in the team's overall results. It slipped a little bit this year,
I would say, but it was still a very good five on four unit
and he picked up a bunch of points. But he was a dominant five
on five player right He was outstanding, and it's important to mention, Yeah,
he was very good in his own end and a player who just he
just is such a sort of a personal drive to just beat the other guy
that it really really stands out how much does stuff matters to him? And
yeah, so as a result, like I think it is repeatable. I
think this is he's he is right end, it's p prime scoring window,
right. I think there's every reason to think he can do it again.
And he found a partnership a lot, especially with Andrew Kuzmenko, who wasn't
always his winger but was his winner for a lot of the season. He
found a partnership in Kuzmenko that really I think took his game to the next
level. But he kept scoring even without the Russian. Early in the year
they were playing a lot with He was playing a lot with Illiam mckayev as
well, And I think there's a feeling that what those two players brought to
the table was really good complimentary stuff like McKay have speed, at least in
theory. He obviously came played most a year with an ACL injury, but
McKay of speed in theory was supposed to really open up space for him.
He was going to be further down the ice and stretching defenses and giving Petterson
more space to play into. And so it'll be interesting to see how they
worked that next year. But yeah, he's a guy that's everything that happened.
Like he's a bottle popper, right. Like his shot, the first
goal he scored in his career was this incredible shot where he sniped the top
corner and he really announced himself over Mikes and the shoulder and really announced himself
as I'm the guy and I'm going to be a guy. And yeah,
it's an exciting he's a very much an exciting part of his career. And
the other thing two, of course, he's going into contract season, right,
so there's a motivation there to really drive himself and really put his foot
down again to say, listen, no, I am this player, I
am the guy, I am a hundred I'm one hundred point player, I
am one of the one of the league's right play Another guy who certainly had
a great season, especially from fantasy perspective. JT. Miller, Victor and
I both said number fifteen forward coming to the year he was number seventeen pretty
much nailed it right on first tier for both of his last year first tier
this year. He recently turned thirty years old and his statuet is just stacked.
That's why we love him. Over a point per game in three of
his four years in Vancouver, every year except the pandemic year. He tied
a career high thirty two goals last year. Fantasy players love three shots a
game and two and a half hits per game. It's a gold not to
mention his propensity to play different forward positions and therefore give us multiple position eligibility
number seven forward in our bash, which is blocks, plush shots plus hits
and a lot to do with that shorthand and stat I gave early on in
this episode. Five of those shorthanded goals belonged to JT. Miller, and
that led the NHL had a rotating cast of blind made throughout the year.
It looks like Connor Garland brock Bess were his top two. But it's good
that he has all that going because the team has given him their biggest financial
commitment, seven year extension that eight million per kicks in this offseason. So
is GT. Miller just the continued slam dunk to keep up this level of
production. He's always been a second half guy. And I actually talked to
him at one point about this. I said, why is it that you
always seem to get better as the season comes along, And in this season,
for example, he was terrible in the first half. And he was
the first person to admit it. He just I think he's a bit of
an emotional cannonball, I guess is the best way to put it. Bowling
ball. I don't even know. He goes everywhere at times, and I
think the biggest challenge for him remains channeling his energy. And he came into
the season a little bit. I don't think he would put it this way,
but I think our impression was he had popped his ego got popped up
a little bit. He had signed that deal, he was feeling good.
He's the top dog, and I think he let that runaway from himself a
little bit. And he talked about He even talked abouim. He got a
hockety in Canada, like Kevin Bixa and Kelly, Rudy especially the extra will
tell you the truth. Generally, Rudy generally tries to find the sort of
upbeat kind bangle on everything. But there was a sequence late in the season,
or sorry, late in the late in twenty twenty two, so right
coming into New Year's there was this. There was a moment that I think
a lot of people saw where he was yelling at Collodelia to get off late
in the game against Winnipeg, where the guilty party was Bruce Boudro hadn't called
for Delia to leave the ice for the extra tacker. Miller lost his cool
on the ice, slammed at stick on the back of the net so to
get off, but didn't really wasn't really aware it stood out to people.
Delia said in the end he wasn't mad at Miller. Everyone knows that Miller's
a passionate guy, and then he just trying to say that. But it
was a look that caught a lot of people off guard. It's not something
you often see, and it perhaps got built into something bigger than it actually
was. But then the next game in Calgary, I think on New Year's
Eve, Miller looked terrible on a back check on one goal and then was
the victim of an unfortunate change on an other goal, and it just looked
there was a it looked back bad for a guy that's supposed to one of
the team's leaders. There was just there was some real sort of bad optics.
Certainly there have been. It's not the first time that Miller had been
caught out not backchecking. There was an instance last season where we had to
ask Boodro, actually, yes, he was less not good enough in overtime.
There was a case where that they lost a game and Miller was caught
Lolligagan on the back check and on TV BX and Rudy ripped Miller for what
that basically what he had done in terms of his lack of effort on a
back check and just what you expect from the team's top player. And he
actually referenced it to me a couple months later when I started asking, hey,
you've really caught fire again in the second half, and he called to
the Shenanigans in Calgary. And I think the criticism in that respect like he's
not a guy that he really is one of these classic guys I don't listen
to the media, and I think he's aware of it, but I think
he mostly just kind of laughs at what he hears from us, which is
fair enough. But when you hear from a former player, especially someone is
esteemed as BX, a guy that obviously is a legend in Vancouver and carries
a lot of weight I think around the league, just because he is one
of the smartest hockey players you'll ever run into. He's got a very strong,
intelligent personality, like when he speaks, people listen, and so to
be criticized publicly by him, I think really hit home. And so you
got this Millard reset himself if you will, and got himself moving in a
direction and moving forward. And I think some of it, too, is
there was a lot of kind of noise around because things were so chaotic with
the Bruce Brugro situation that essentially got called out. The coach got called out
by president Jim Rutherford in like early November and wasn't fired for two months.
That it just the environment became The players admitted late they didn't say toxic,
but we knew it was toxic. It was difficult on them. They were
totally unsure what was going on. It's hard for them. You show up
to work, you want to feel like you know what's going on, and
when there was all kinds of noise and it's not just media generated, like
it's team generated by itself. You know, that starts to wear on you,
and that was difficult. He talked a lot about that. And then
there was the bow Horvat situation where once they'd signed Miller before the season,
essentially became clear that was almost certainly they were gonna have to trade bow Horbat.
There was almost no way they were going to be able to resign him.
And so that started to become as we got closer and closed the deadline,
you get to the new year, you get to January, it started
to become a bit of a circus. And even then like even that's just
it's just chattered. People are just going to talk about it. And it
wasn't even so much every day. Bowback, I think, handled it pretty
professionally, perfectly, honest. He came out in December and said, guys
that him, this is all I'm gonna say and are going to say.
We actually talked to him about why he said it, and he was really
good about it. But it wasn't like we were coming in every day asking
him what do you think? What do you think? What do you think?
But nonetheless, there was the constant sort of when is bow Horback going
to get traded? When is Bruce Boudreau going to get fired? And that
was another thing that Miller admitted I think got in their heads, and he
said once they got past all that, I think they mentally reset themselves.
They got cleared up, and again, like I said, he had this
dominant second half. You look at it's wild, you bring it back up,
and you look at how good, how good his second half was,
and that was a guy that was just figuring it out. He mentioned that
the penalty kill, like Miller has been not an amazing two way player.
He's got this reputation as a defensive kind of guy, like a Ryan Kesler
two point oh kind of guy. He's not that player, let's be clear,
but he has a nose for offense. And I would say that there
was some evidence their penalty kill was all time bad before talk it showed up,
and they've managed to reset it. They brought it up and still was
terrible, but it wasn't all time bad. And part of what they were
able to do is they reset a lot of what they were doing and a
lot of the time they would have Miller and Patterson killing a penalty together and
they were these dynamic threats. They became quite a threat on the PK and
in many ways reminding I would think people here a little bit going back to
the nineties because Knocks used to run Pavo Burrey out in the power Play because
the pat Quinn thought that was a chance to attack the underside of the underside
of the belly a little bit, right, Like, there's some vulnerabilities there
when you're on the power play, and and you can put some scoring talent
who knew how to play the game, and LEAs Patterson knows how to play
like. He is an amazing anticipatory player, and so putting him and Miller
together really became an interesting dynamic in the PK because they were Petterson so good
at intercepted passes and Miller reads off Petterson really well. They may not be
the tightest of friends or closest they as far as as far as I know,
probably spend no time at all together off ice, which is which has
happened, But they certainly found a bit of a happy medium. I think
eventually, you know, there had been some issues that get their backstory that
you look at how he played. The question now is at the age of
thirty. How much longer can he sustain this? And I think certainly you
go into next year, there's no suggestion that he's going to fall off,
there are You know, once you get a three in front of your at
the beginning of your age, things can turn. Things can turn quite quickly.
But I think next year, certainly, going in next year, he's
a good bat. He's going to be a center. You're right, he's
got he's had always had the positional flexibility. But I think more than anything
now unless there is some unless somehow the Cannucks pull off a trade, and
I don't think that's impossible. He's going to be their second center going into
next year, and he'll play a lot in the powerplay. I would say
that's the one thing, interestingly enough, on why he didn't hit ninety nine
points two seasons ago. You know why he was a little bit behind.
That was again that power play, as they scored a lot in power play,
But like I said, Petterson didn't score till the end of January,
and Miller picked up a lot of points on the power play last year.
So that's the one sort of question mark. He's a pretty consistent five five
score, but I'd say the one question mark is forever that Canucks powerplay,
which has tons of potential to score, and certainly when it was on last
season, was scoring a lot and has a bunch of threats on that first
unit. First unit plays three quarters of a power player every night. There's
a lot of opportunity to score. He's a guy that's going to keep keep
seeing those minutes and for the next couple of seasons anyway, I think he's
going to continue to be one of those top end scorers, definitely, and
another one of the top end scorers. We got to move on to Andre
Kuzmenko, and we didn't really know what to expect with Kuzmenko. He'd been
a pretty decent player in Russia, but it wasn't really until his final season
putting up fifty three points into forty five games in the SHL for Scott Saint
Petersburg that he really popped off the page. Before that, he was a
thirty ish point player in their season, and in the preseason, I was
the one who thought I'd watched some of his KHL tape and I was really
trying to figure out what I thought of him, and I said, I
think he can put sixty to seventy points, which was pretty high. I
think most people were a lot more conservative on him. I did not think
he'd go over my expectations seventy four point base. He did me there,
but incredible first season there for the now twenty seven year old I Jesse and
I didn't rank him because we weren't really sure. He ended up one hundred
and eighth, so we usually in the rank the top one hundred and so
that was pretty reasonable. Actually, going in the next year, I have
him as his Tier two Jesse Tier three, and part of that is because
he really isn't a guy who's going to hit, block, or shoot all
that much. He's getting under two shots a game. He only had thirteen
hits in eighteen blocks and eighty one game, so those aren't really things that
he's gonna do. But it's not like he's a defensive liability either. His
suspected goals against are above the mean, and so's his corsi against. But
really it's his goals that are his bread and butter. He's really far and
above the NHL average there. But I also seriously doubt he's a career twenty
seven percent shooter. So that might come down a little bit. His PDO
is also ten twenty seven, which we see really elite players rock high pdos
like that. We just don't have enough data to say if as Kuzmenko can
do that and based on his shooting percent and I think he won't. But
Patrick, what do you think about Kuzmenko? Can he stay in that seventy
to eighty point range going into twenty twenty three, twenty four? I know
that you said he plays really well with Patterson and the other thing to consider,
as you mentioned it's true with Petterson, it's also true with Kuzmenko,
and that is that he is playing for He's playing for his new contracts,
so that's going to play in there. So what do you think of Kuzmenko?
Kuzmenko, Yeah, here's an interesting context. In his last month of
the season, he had the second lowest ice time game of his season as
well as his highest ice time game of his season. So right there,
it's a season in a nutshell. You've already mentioned the twenty seven percent shooting
percentage. It was just it was off the charts. How good he wasn't
finishing? Now, if you watch the way he scored goals. It's probably
not surprising that he had a high shooting percentage. He scored goals exactly where
you want them. He was around the net. He was incredible good hands,
incredibly quick, gets the pluck up incredibly quick. If I'm not mistaken,
I didn't double check this, but he was second in tip goals this
season. The Canocks were like off the charts good at getting tip goals.
And I really came to believe that this was an intentional choice, a bit
of a strategic choice by them focusing in on basically especially on the power play.
But they had Bull Horbad, who had worked incredibly hard at essentially being
a net front guy, at being a guy on the bumper on the power
play, working with Adam Oates in the off season, and we talked a
lot about the skill of finding getting your stick free in the slot to deflect
point shots or shots from the side of the side of the slot, and
he was very good adept at that. Kuse Mako proved to be very adept
at that. And I think the analogy I used was one from there's the
idea of the set piece and soccer had gone away. This is going back
almost ten years now, but COO Madrid had actually gone for this idea of
nobody is practicing set pieces, so we're going to figure it out and we're
going to make this an essentially an area of advantage. And they did,
and we actually saw a little bit here locally in the MLS for banker white
gaps. They actually did it in a league that wasn't practicing defending set pieces.
They were trying to find a scene in the overall thinking. And so
I think we saw that. I really do think we saw that with the
Canucks this year, that they saw something that a lot of teams don't do.
And I don't know if anybody's ever looked at it this way, but
they were really working hard on tipping point shots, finding new ways to get
the puck at the net in ways that were difficult for the goalie and the
defense to read and deal with. And now I'm finding and now I'm wondering
how much our team's going to work to adapt this approach and that or maybe
it was just really good luck. Maybe they're just really lucky on this,
and so one way or another, I don't expect they're going to be a
successful tipping pucks in next season and Kuzminko was their best guy at that And
like I said, he still scores lots of goals from the areas he want
to score. That he is a goal scorer. He taught. He told
us late in the year that you go look at his stats from KHL and
he was never a big shooter in the KHL. He shot more this year
than I think he had in his entire career, and he has basically admitted
that coaches have always told him to shoot more and he finally clued in.
And I think he's really connected with a coaching staff here that speaks in the
terms that he thinks talkt and Sergei Ganjar, who's here is a sort of
halftime assistant coach, essentially talked a lot about how inquisitive he is, what
a sort of student of the game, and he's constantly trying to understand what
they're partly because there's a language barrier and he's trying to learn what they're saying
to him, but also he want they're telling him things they see in his
game that they think translate to the NHL. And coming into the air,
he said he was considering he was nervous about how hard it would be to
get to the net. He looked at how tight the NHL ice surfaces compared
to the KHL, and but at the same time, he said, he
really liked you force a turn over on the boards and all of a sudden,
you turn around, you're looking at the net. It's not like the
KHL where you're forced to turn over on the boards and you have to skate
a mile to get to the slot. And so he really liked that.
Like everything went well for him, I think. So to expect that he's
going to score thirty nine goals again, I think is unreasonable. But he
clearly has proved himself to be a talent. And even if you take away
a few of those goals, you cut his shooting percentage down, he's still
a good chance to be a thirty goal scorer. Right. He's going to
play a lot. He's going to play on your top two lines, he's
going to be on your first power play unit. He is going to get
opportunity to score. And so from mass standpoint, I mean, they had
concerns with his two way play, and that's why we saw him playing at
times not as month he got benched a couple of times late in the season,
but it wasn't I don't think there's any suggestion that he has any kind
of rift with him and the coaching staff. I think he in the end,
he wasn't happy. No one's ever happy to be scratched. But I
think the impression we have is he took he took that with as the right
message is being yes, no, they're right. I need to think about
these things. It was late in the season where they had no hope of
the playoffs. You couldn't understand why players might lose focus a little bit.
Obviously, that's the thing you have to learn. But again, if they're
in a playoff chase next year, he's a guy they're gonna they'll be in
a playoff chase because he's scoring, because he's playing well for them. If
he's not scoring, he's not playing well for them. Next year, they're
not gonna be making the playoffs. He is the kind of complimentary player in
a tough division. When you look at the Canucks playing in the Pacific,
they're up against Edmonton, they're up against Vegas, they're up against la they're
up against Seattle, they're up against Calgary. That there's some really top opponents,
especially on the edge of the playoffs, and the Canucks aren't or I
don't think there are a clear cut playoff team for next year. But they're
in that mix with Calgary, with Seattle, with teams like that, and
so if they're gonna overcome their opponents, that means they're scoring. And like
I said, if they're scoring, that means Andre Kuzmiko is scoring as well.
Let's we need to get through Brack Besser here, and I think it's
it's that there's a lot to say, but there's not a lot, and
this is one of the most predictable guys, it seems like for our span
see guys. Anyway, He's a fine player. He's about the hundred best
player in Fantasy Victor and Ibol called that coming into the year. He's not
a superstar. Sixty one point pace this year, career sixty five point pace
prior to last year. Never does a lot of shots and hits aversham on
Ice seems to be dropping to its lowest level since his nine game rookie cameo
slid into the top five in power play tim on ice when bo Horvatt went
out the door but advanced mentricks don't really like his defensive impact or his contract.
Do you think brock Besser is straat sale and ahead or you think something
dramatic is going to change with him? We're not interested in you guys want
to know about points broadcasters brock Besters. I'm a huge brock Besser person.
Okay, Like as a person, I'm not saying unfortunately as a scorer,
like I really like watching Brock play. I think he's an underrated hockey player,
like as it just as doing things well. Obviously, his skating is
I think always highlighted, been highlighted as a bit of a drawback. He's
not a He is not a guy that pulls away from other people. And
I think, as he's now in his late twenties, that is something that
he is going to have to dial in on because you get the nail on
the head. He's done things well, but he's not playing as much and
he's got a big contract, and he's not a player that at this point,
even though he is quite clearly lace kind of on production as second line
winger, he is going to start moving into that realm of guys where Okay,
what do you actually do that's different from anyone else. And certainly in
his first couple of seasons he had this fabulous risk shot. Everyone knew that
he had this. He could pull the trigger better than most. While he
had a career low and goals this year, some of that was because he
suffered a risk injury in training camp and took a long time to recover from
that. Some of that was what he talked about mentally, what he was
going through. His father died last summer. He'd had a terribly hard,
really hard His father's decline had been really hard. He suffered, he had
been suffering from Parkinson's for a long time. He'd battled cancer for a long
time. His father was dealing with dementia by the end. Didn't even go
His dad, who had been Rocks number one fan, didn't even go to
the last Canucks, last Canucks visit to Minnesota last last or two seasons ago,
a year ago. You know that it was really hard, and I
think I think people who pay attention to the can I certainly saw. We
saw this at the end of season media conference last year when he was asked
about his dad and he broke down and he was he ended up talking about
it, and he wanted to talk about it. Was hard, but he
felt he needed to share his story. And then this year he was the
head of the PHWA chapter here and we nominated him as our master to nominee
just for dedicate, because we knew what he'd been through. And I had
a really good chat with him, like he and I have, I think
a pretty good relationship, and we talked a lot about what he'd been through
this year and learning to live after the loss of a parent. And as
he said, all the other guys can call their dads after a game and
chat about how they did. He's I don't know that, and so he
had to learn a little bit. And then the first half of the season
was really difficult. It was hard. He didn't play very well. The
second half he improved, studied along and kept picking up points. But you
look at his record, but took he didn't score until its first. It
took him. He got hurt. Partly, it's because he got hurt,
but he didn't score until November. His first goal didn't come till November eighteenth.
He was sitting on coming into December, He's managed just fourteen points.
He was almost scratched at the beginning of December on what would have been Hot
Hockey Talks Cancer Night, which I think was an emotional event for him.
But he started finding his way. He started playing better. He was playing
a lot highlighted. He played a lot with JT. Miller. He used
to be the kind of trigger man on on Elia's Patterson's line, but that
Kuzmenko supplanted him as that. And then he finally found a groove with JT.
Miller, and he should. JT. Miller is a fantastic passer.
This is part of the thing. This is a thing to recognize. I
think going forward with Miller is that he's still going to put the puck on
teammates stick like he is going to pick up assists forever. That's a bit
of an old players skill. But that's where he's at, and so Besser.
But Besser also, for one time he started seemed like he didn't have
any puck luck, kept hitting the post. But and then, like you
said, once horbat Laft got a lot more first power play ice time,
and especially down the stretch as they tried to dial in with Kuzmenko. He
kept on the first unit because Mano kind of bounced around a little bit,
even though, because Mano seemed to be the better finisher. Whether so,
whether that was about a showcase or trying to say listen to trying to builds
confidence up one way or another, that's where it was. But at the
end of the day, he finished. He scored five goals in March,
two goals in April, but he'd had only two goals in February. He
had only three goals in January, so it was a bit of a It
was a really uneven season and as a result, he's in that window like
he's still getting the power play time, but I don't know if he's producing
enough to justify a spot on the first unit. So he's a guy that's
a bit of a trade chip, I think. I mean, there is
this noise, like I said that maybe they'll make a deal with Chicago.
I think because they need to get out from a contract at least I think
their desire would be get out from under Tyler Myers' deal. I think that's
realistically a they think they can move on from. But I think you look
at Chicago and what they're likely to get asked for. Look for if they're
making a deal. He's one of the wingers, and so you got Rock
Bester and you got Connor Garland I think are the most likely. Kennedy,
so it'll be interesting to see it. Besser is even a Vancouver Cannuck next
year. He really he said he wants to be here. Mid season he
basically get asked for a trade, but by the end of the season he
was happy to want. He loves here. He's happy with his life here.
It is one of those lifestyles pretty good players like being here. But
it's from the team's standpoint they have to I think they're having to be realistic
now. But what he brings to the table, and it's not clear to
me, it's not clear to me. Like I said, he scored a
second line rate. I think that the productions there, but the role.
He's a guy that feels like his role could change quickly, even if he's
getting paid what he's getting paid. Yeah, so we just have a cup
more forwards. I'm going to challenge you, give me a sentence. Put
these three guys in order, because there's something they have common. Ilia McKay,
Anthony Pavillier, Connor Garland three more guys half point per game, kind
of r four to five million dollar contracts a piece, So there's some commonality
there. What order would you put them in terms of what you're expecting for
production there? I think we can at the top because, like I said,
I expect that he'll be back with Petterson. They really liked how he
plays. I think realistically that's the other two are good questions because Bovillier,
I mean, I think we assume when they trade for him, he might
turn into a trade chip this season. I think there's still a good reason
to think of just a nature of his contract and sort of the kind of
player he is. But Garland is an option, like I just said as
well, So Garland Mobilier found a groove here. He'd struggled to score in
New York. They certainly liked the sort of quality that he brought to the
table. He played a lot with Elia's Petterson at least to start with,
found a bunch of some of those goals. There was some pot luck involved,
but certainly they liked like what he brought the table. Garlands Garland is
an interesting one. Beavillia got more powerfulay time than Connor. Garland tip Connor
Garland for whatever reason and has never been a big power play guy here,
but he is a five on five producer and he just plays the game in
a way that he drives you into the fight kind of guy, like he's
a guy that likes to get involved. But I think the fact that Beauvillier
clearly is ahead of the ahead of him on the powerplay selection list, I
think you got to rank him ahead of Garland, and Garland's the last one.
And like I said, Garland might get end up getting traded. For
both those guys might get traded, but if one gets traded, I think
it's Garland first. All right, that's good info on the forwards. Let's
move over to the defenseman now, and of course we're going to start with
Quinn Hughes. Hughes had a pretty awesome season. He had the highest point
pace to date at eighty Jesse and I because of the relatively low hits,
blocks and shots, we tend to fade him a little bit, and I
had him at twenty seven Jesse twenty three. He was actually the seventeenth best
defenseman, and that's partially because he had his career best season in shots,
hits, and blocks, so he really is getting up there close to a
block per game. His hits are still under half a hit per game,
but I remember twenty nineteen twenty he had seven hits in sixty eight games,
so he's a far cry from that. Yeah, but he's offensively dynamic and
awesome. His contribution of goals is way over the top, and his coursie
against for sixty was really good this season two. Not that he's like ever
been the most the best defensive defenseman, but he's really pretty good both ways.
And so you're leaving out there, leaving him out there all the time,
really heavy time on ice, and he's got a pretty high salary.
According to dam Lucisions model, he has a five point eight million dollars surplus
on his seven point nine million dollars contracts, so worth every penny and then
some. I don't really think any of his metrics scream regression. So to
me, this leaves me wondering, is this his ceiling? Could he even
had? It's hard to be greedy after an eighty point paced season, but
do you think that he could go above that? Or what should we expect
from he was moving forward here? I think that's a great way to frame
it, is this his ceiling. The fact that we're even talking about that
tells you what a spectacular points producer he is. At least, he's not
a guy, and he's not a big guy, so he's never gonna throw
hits. It was funny in mid season they did mention here anyway that,
oh, look all the blocks. I said, let's get real here,
and yeah, he's getting a block up. I think at that point he's
got a block per game. But contextually he was like way down the list.
It wasn't like it was more than essentially the essential zero that you just
highlighted. But he's not a guy. That's not his game. His game
is having the puck on a stick and more and more this season that he
was amazing at that to the point where like he really needs to be.
He's not. It's hard to win the Norris Trophy. This is a golden
asure defenseman. But he should be in that conversation. That's how well his
season wins, especially on a team that struggled defensively, like he was a
standout player in relative terms, like this was a team that struggled to defend.
They never struggled to defend when he was on the ice because he's so
smart he handles the puck ball. Now, obviously, when we're talking about
fantasy hockey, that doesn't matter. What matters is are you putting up points?
And he's going to put up points? Will there was some It was
such a remarkable season that as we went into the finish, we found ourselves
looking at, Okay, can he get to X y Z? Is there?
What? How much further can he take this? How many assists can
you end up? Can he get to whatever? Goals? It's the amazing
thing in all this is it took him half the season actually get his first
goal, and some of that was pucklock. Right, So next year,
I mean, there you go. If he's able to score at the rate
in the second half that he scored this season, if he's able to do
that over the whole season, like that's five six more goals, right,
there's no reason to think he won't keep putting up the assists. And like
I said, the power play was a little bit uneven. If it's more
consistent, he's the guy running the show. Yeah, could this. I
don't think he's gonna put up a hundred points. I don't think, you
know, Eric Carlson's was so stellar this year doing that, But I do
think he's a guy that he's a guy that, yeah, absolutely eighty points
again is not unreasonable and maybe even doing better than that once or twice.
Yeah, he's a guy to make a bet to do that, he's a
safe bet to repeat, and he's not an unreasonable bet to do better.
What kind of two other defensemen we want to cover and not Tyler Meyers?
So I don't want to get into Tyler Myers. There's something going on,
but we got our powerplay quarterback QUINNI used. But the other two guys who
are usually more on the radar for the fantasy players, Oliver Ekman, Larson
and Philip Heronick the new arrival and Victor and I had high helps for Eckman.
Oel's fantasy game usually comes out a little bit ahead of his maybe his
real game. It depends. Your computations may vary, but they are paying
him a lot of money for a long time, and he scored some points,
he did some things, but he lost. He left for the season
in mid February with a bad ankle, his time on ice little bit down.
Then you get over to Philip Herronick. They traded for him. They
paid up for Philip Herronick from the Detroit Red Wings of first rounder, a
second rounder, Fornic and a fourth rounder, so they invested some future assets
in this guy. But he had an incredible year. His defensive rating completely
flipped. He'd been a negative in advanced metrics for years, flipped to a
huge positive this last year. Worry that this was this the career year because
he's a twenty five year old. Now he's gonna lock down five percent of
the cap this year, likely restricted free agency. He's going to get paid.
So are these guys fantasy half point per game type guys? Maybe?
I don't know what you think there? And should we expect solid world's good
production for these guys in the coming years. They are a great pairing to
discuss l His season was awful even before he got hurt. He broke his
foot last year the World Championships and basically admitted to us that he never properly
recovered from that, and his skating was terrible. He was constantly getting beat
on the outside. There were times when he almost looked like he was dealing
with a knee problem. Like he had meniscus surgery four years ago when he
was still at Arizona. He never wanted to talk about it, but I
would look at him going to be like, I think you're just straight.
I think it's just you strained something. They've got a bruise in there.
I don't know, But in the end he said his foot was a real
issue. So there's a belief here going into next year that you know he'll
be He's going to be fully healthy again. He's not going to be the
player he was ten years ago, Like there's just no getting around that he's
in his thirties. But the Canucks think that the smarts are there, the
skills are still there, that he can be a even if he's not gonna
be as useful as his cap hit demands, he can still be a lot
more useful than he was last year and his first season he was a good
Yeah, nailed it, like he was a half point per game producer,
Like he put a decent run of points up. And if you're looking at
a player who's gonna play, probably get a lot of minutes if you don't
have to take like salary cap hit into consideration in your league, like if
you're not in a kind of some kind of cap league that looks at actual
real life play cap hits, he'll be fine. Like he'll get your points.
He's not going to play a ton on the power play anymore. And
that's the same story for Ronicronix. So much of his production in Detroit was
about the power play. He is now the second fiddle behind Twin Hughes.
He's gonna run the second unit. But like I said, the second unit
gets thirty minutes. If it gets a quarter of the powerplay ice time,
he's not going to produce a lot. But I do think the Canucks what
they are hoping to do is they're hoping to run things out as essentially,
have Hughes run one pair, Heronick run the other pair, and those guys
are gonna split the game that you're gonna have a not a lot of ice
time from your bottom pair. So Ronic is going to be on the ice
a lot with top players, right, So there's gonna be a chance to
produce. You just have to be realistic. He is not the number one
guy anymore. He's gonna play a lot, but he's not the number one
guy. He's not the guy that they're looking to lead the charge the way
they're looking to from Hughes. We'll see how it plays out. Obviously,
had a difficult end of the season. He got hurt right before the trade,
played a couple of games, and the Canucks shut him down because they're
just like I mean, they claimed, well, we want him to get
it right. But you wondered how worried they were about the injury. I
don't think there's any reason to think you heard his shoulder, but I don't
think there's any reason to think he's not gonna be ready to go next season.
All right, let's go good info on the defenseman. Now, let's
switch over to goalies. The Canucks had the twenty third expected goals against per
sixty two point seven seven, but conceded the twenty fifth most actual goals at
three point six one. Overall, they fell a little bit below expectations,
but that was really just one guy. That was Spencer Martin. He had
fourteen point three negative goals save above expected and he ended up playing a fair
number of games. Dempco had the injuries. We'll talk about him in a
second. They had Delia with twenty goals, sorry, twenty games and Spencer
Martin twenty nine, Artur Silovs, who will talk about just five. But
let's focus on Demko for a minute here, because even though the raw say
percentage doesn't look that good, just a nine oh one save percentage GA three
point one six, but he had five point eight goals save above expected and
his delta Fenwick was really good at point five one. So all on his
thirty two appearances he was good. Unfortunately because of the grain injury, it
doesn't it didn't really help all that much. I'm sure Canucks fans are wondering
how the season would have gone if he was there the whole time. Yeah,
he definitely all performed his expected He was a little worse on the PK,
but that's partially to be expected based on how much more difficult the work
is. I think the issue with Demco is he has had a bunch of
injuries here and there, and the twenty twenty one twenty two season is the
one he actually played the most in. I guess part of his we're wondering
when twenty twenty two or twenty three twenty four do you think that we can
get similar strong production and a full is season from him next? Year,
what do you think? Good question becomes, do you think he is the
goalie that posted back to back nine in safe percentage seasons in twenty one,
twenty one, twenty two, or the goalie was eight put up an eighty
eight point three safe percentage in first half this year, and I think based
on the way he played when he came back, which was well north of
north of nine hundred and a safe percentage, that's the goal he is.
But you're right. In the last year he has had two substantial injuries,
and in exactly the kind of areas of his body that you do not want
a goalie to get injured. He heard his foot and then or sorry,
heard his knee and then he heard his growing right. Those are massive,
that's everything. He came back. He looked like his old self when he
played once he came back. So he really does feel like a strong bat
and the connects need him to be. But he does feel like a strong
bat to be a solid, top, top tier goalie in this league.
And we've talked a lot about whether he should ever be in besiness consideration.
I think he's just outside of that. You look at how good the top
guys are like Sorrows and Sirokan and guys like that. He's not or hell
of Buck. He's not quite that level, but he's close and he has
shown enough. I would say, like I said, since he'd broken the
league in nineteen twenty and became the Canucks's number one guy in twenty twenty one,
that he has shown enough that this is a guy. He's going to
play a bunch. Now. Is he gonna get sixty starts like he did
last year? He probably shouldn't. The Canucks do are really hopeful that their
backup this year? Who is when we can maybe just bridge into the backup
discussion here? He touched on it, whether that's Spencer Martin or that's Archer's
sealovs. I think we're looking at they need twenty five starts from their backup,
and they were hoping Martin would give them that. Martin kind of hit
the wall like he was. They didn't get the starts, they didn't get
any performance from Demco to start. Then Demco got hurt. Then that Martin
had to play a bunch. Martin lost. Martin in the end, is
he's a backup goally at best? Good dude has worked very hard to win
his way back into the NHL after kind of bombing out in Colorado. I
think there's every reason to think he'll be He'll certainly get the first sort of
look because they I think they want like Archer, Sealoves has had an incredible
sort of He had a really strong season. He played well in Vancouver,
he played really well in the HL, was the team MVP in Abbotsford at
their HL team, and now that this really great run at the World Championships
with lap yet like he has basically took them to the final four. Right,
it was a guy the whole team played well and obviously playing home helps,
but he was a big story here. And so this is a player
that the Canucks want to keep. They want him to play right like he
he didn't play a ton during in the COVID year in twenty twenty twenty one,
he barely played and that was the distance he's come since then is actually
fantastic. This is a team that's leaped delighted with the progress he's shown.
So I think it's every reason I think he'll start the year in the HL.
Martin will be the backup to Demco. But if Martin falters at all,
they know they can bring selves in and he can be I think they
believe that he can be their kind of number two guy. If they really
need to, they'd rather not, but that's how they're going to go,
Martin is They're hoping he gives them some serviceable results, plays well enough.
But at the end of the day, Demco, I think there's their ideal
would be he starts of twenty fifty five fifty five issue games and then you
get twenty seven games from your backup and hopeful there certainly will be hopeful that
gets them enough. But again, like this is a team that is desperate
to make the playoffs, and teams that are desperate that makes the playoffs may
lean on their number one goalie war than they probably should. So that's the
other thing is that if the floor for Demco's fifty five, you might get
sixty five starts and a sixty five start goalie who's posting a nine fifteen,
nineteen, nine, ten s a percentage. That's pretty good for your fantasy
team, isn't it. Oh yeah, totally, definitely. Well Patrick,
this has been great information on the Vancouver Canucks. Why don't you tell people
how they can follow your work and keep up with this team as it has
I'm sure an exciting offseason. The Province dot com is where where I write.
It's the Vancouver Province in the newspaper here in Vancouver. And you know
there is that Twitter machine that I'm less and less a fan of. But
ad rising Action there. I'm on Blue Sky, same same I've gotten in
there, so if you manage to squeeze your way in there, it's the
same handle. I'm on the wait list. Now you go, Yeah,
Rising Action dot Blue beast Guy dot Social if you want to find me on
Blue Sky and try to figure out how navigating all the way through all this.
But always happy to answer questions as long as you don't say mean things
or swear at me and swear at me. My rule is you swear at
me, you get a block. But if only if you're really annoying,
do you get muted. Otherwise I'm there to hear what weird things you have
to ask, But yeah, there you go, so I don't get thankfully,
don't get too many weird questions. Mostly just get people who want who
want to see this team do better than they've been doing and want to see
ownership actually believe that's actually let to the hockey ops department do their jobs.
So we'll see what that's right. Our listeners aren't like that, Patrick,
No way, they'll they'll be nice when they follow. They're good folks,
all right, Thanks Patrick. I hope we can talk to you again about
these Vancouver Canucks. Thanks Pallas. That's get fired grab Now it's your weekly
goalie talk with Kats Silverman Cats Instincts. Time again for another edition of Cat's
Instincts, this time Vancouver Canucks edition. And they got some goalies, They
got some decent guys to talk about. Arturs SI loves, loves, SI
loves. Not quite sure. He is a Latvian, so it probably has
It has a bunch of weird signals and signs above the consonants and vows that
I'm not really sure what it does. But he's the twenty nineteen six round
pick, six foot four, two undred and fifteen pounds, just turned twenty
two Canada North America last season and struggled a little bit in the HL,
but when he got called up to the NHL, he actually looked pretty good.
And of all the goalies that they played in the NHL level, he
wasn't the worst spencer Martin, at least in terms of goal Sabe above expected
took that Moniker, and of course Stemp was pretty great. And according to
certain metrics, Siloves was similar to Colin Delia, who has at least played
a bunch of NHL games to his credit. So in the Howey prospecting model,
he's got right now a twenty one percent chance of being an NHLer and
he certainly has pretty decent size, and he's twenty two, so he's not
super young. What can you tell us about What does Kat's instincts tell us
about Silves? He's a mixed bag for me. I think he's an incredible
skater who greatly struggles with his transitions sometimes, which for better for worse.
That's something that's easy enough to mask if with good skating, which he manages
to do sometimes. The only problem is that Vancouver is not a good environment
for allowing that to be masked per se, because that team has some absolutely
awful defense sometimes, and so it's always tough to gauge just how a goaltender
is going to thrive. When you look at Vancouver in their system, they're
just one of those teams that doesn't give us a whole lot to work with.
I think that he struggles a little bit with his depth management, a
little bit with his transitions. Pretty good at reading the plays though, and
manages to adapt to chaos pretty well, which he manages to do with both
that good skating ability, and he seems like he doesn't let some of those
bad goals spook him, and he doesn't change up his play too much when
he does have a bad goal, which is always nice to see in Vancouver
because that's a good environment for a guy who kind of shakes it off well.
I'd love to see how he'd do behind a stronger team. But he's
doing well for the Abbotsford Canucks last time I checked, to put up some
pretty decent numbers in the minors. You obviously don't want to trap him down
there for too long, but I think if they're able to let him play
at least half of next season down in the HL again, just to give
him a little bit more consistency see what Vancouver's doing if they start to free
fall. You don't want to waste his development behind a team that's essentially setting
him up to lose. But if it seems like they're structurally at least treading
water. It's worth bringing him up and giving him another look, just because
I think he did roll with it really nicely last year. He played well
at the minor league level. When he came up, he didn't absolutely fall
apart. We've seen a couple different goaltenders when they get called up to Vancouver
just absolutely plummet during those first couple of games because that team does not their
new arrivals very well. And that, for lack of a better way to
put it, Yeah, I think he's a fun goaltender. It's it's always
interesting seeing how goaltenders play out in Vancouver because I think they're a team that
just has consistently done a good job of keeping some really good guys in the
wings. We've talked about a couple of teams in the past that just don't
seem to whether it's lack of availability or black of guys being willing to come
to their teams for whatever reason, they don't seem like they're willing to stockpile
the cupboard very effectively. Vancouver is not one of those. They do a
bad job with some things like contract amounts in duration for their aging skaters,
and that's fine, but when it comes to people, when it comes to
goaltending, they do a really good job of just keeping they have. They
usually have at least one, if not two, good goaltenders at the NHL
level, and then they usually have at least one, if not two,
good goaltenders in the miners, and they usually have at least one guy who
whether it was Michael Gartigue for a while, Richard Bachman, they usually have
someone in their system who's like a solid tweeterer who you can keep them in
the AHL there are a good locker room guy for the younger goaltenders that are
being drafted and brought up into the system and it sets them up to succeed.
So confident in him. I am not always confident in Vancouver as a
whole, but I'm usually pretty confident in what they haven't done. Awesome,
that's great to hear. And let's move on to the next guy we were
going to bring up, and that is Tie Young. Tye Young was a
twenty twenty two fifth round pick, so just this past draft, he's actually
extremely young for his draft year. He's only four days away from being eligible
this year twenty twenty three, so really an interesting timeline there, and he
has been playing in the WHL for the Prince George Cougars. Raw numbers don't
look great eight ninety nine percentage in thirty four games, three point nine.
He's six three eighty three pounds. But again, being really young and maybe
not being on the best team can do that a little bit for you.
So, Cat, what are your instincts tell us about Tie Young? He's
another interesting one. I Vancouver always gives us so much to talk about.
I was curious whether or not he was going to get drafted this last year
when I was looking through just scouting last year's draft boss, because he was
one of two goaltenders on the Prince George Cougars who was eligible. The other
one was their starter, Tie Brennan, who played a completely different game from
Tye Young. It was the two ties. Tie Brennan was literally willing to
throw anything but the kitchen, sank at the puck and see what happened.
And Tay Young played this game that was like structured, almost to a vault,
and he would just keep his technique consistent even when everything else was crumbling
around him. Because they were a bad team last year, and so I
wasn't sure if ty Young was even going to get drafted because of that,
because like you said, he was just a couple of days away from the
cutoff. I didn't know if teams would want to see what would happen in
his plus one eligibility year, and Vancouver took a chance on him, which
is nice. I think he stalled out a little bit for me this year
because I wanted to see he was so young playing in the WHL his draft
year. I wanted to see if after a year's experience, he started mixing
things up a little bit. I wanted to see if he had that situational
awareness to deviate from his sort of routine structure to in technical game when he
needed to. Because Prince George was once again a team that just didn't do
a whole lot to set him up to succeed. He didn't necessarily do well
for them in the playoffs, but they certainly did nothing to help him there.
They weren't a team that was expected to go far. I wanted to
see a little more creativity and he didn't really give me that. But he
kept his technique very let's lord him looking for very consistent. That's it.
So I just want to see what he does behind a stronger team, and
I wish we'd been able to see that this year. I don't know if
he'll get traded to another team or what will happen there in terms of before
he hits the pros, because I think he has another year of eligibility left
here in the WHL. But I like what he has to work with.
I just want to see from a decision making standpoint, he runs the risk
for me maybe becoming a cow pickard, someone who has a really good technical
game but just cannot deviate from the structure of their game to make things a
little more creative when they need to, and almost lose games sometimes as a
result because they won't just throw themselves in desperation at the puck every once in
a while. Yeah, I've I've been burned a couple of times by Calvin
Pickard pickups in fantasy. He has the ability to, or he had the
ability to, absolutely blow up your numbers. So that's a blast from the
best. Was a blast? Yeah you did? Yeah? Anyways, Yeah,
hopefully Taian can Yeah you said, play in front of a better thing
that that obviously can make a big difference for goalie, So we'll wait and
see on that. He definitely has another year of WHL experience, so we'll
see, as you said, maybe get traded. And the next guy akus
ken Vu, and he is a finish prospect. He was drafted on fifth
round. He's six foot four, ninety pounds and he just came to North
America. He was playing in the HIFK system, playing in the U twenty
SM Saria last couple of seasons and he was at Harvard only. He only
played a couple of games and he did though he did represent Finland internationally.
So Cat, what do your instincts tell us about kuskin Vo. I really
want to see what another year two of North American coaching will do for him,
because I think he he plays like some of the more fun finished goaltenders,
but some of the more chaotic ones. For sure. He has some
of these other guys that we've talked about in the past, I say,
I wish they had just a little more explosive speed to their game, and
that's not the case for Couskin Boo. I think he, especially his lower
body movement, is really quick, really nimble, really agile. He does
a good job of getting across the crease quickly. He stays within his pas
really nicely. He doesn't get too aggressive, but weirdly enough, he sometimes
got passive when I was watching him in games, and he would fall behind
the play and need to make those last second moves across the crease. I
did a lot of really wide low stances that almost created this imbalance when it
came to his recovery, and I just wanted to see him stay a little
more engaged. And obviously we didn't get a huge game sample size from him
this last year. We saw an international play and then we saw only a
few games at Harvard, so that may have just been struggling to get into
a rhythm with not a ton of consistent game play. So there's a chance
that we'll see him really clean that up and it'll be smooth sailing moving forward,
because he does stay caught up with the play when he is engaged,
and when it seems like he's tracking with the play really consistently, he moves
with it really nice, like he doesn't seem like he struggles to keep up
with the pacing of the game. He just sometimes seems like when it comes
to the tracking, like he's just getting a little complacent and then something gets
going a little too quickly. There's too much cross ice movement, and it
seems like he hasn't no crap kind of moment and has to almost overcompensate and
doesn't seem like he quite gets himself into the right rhythm. So that may
have just been something from not getting consistent gameplay. It almost sounds like maybe
he loses his focus or a little bit or a little bit. Yeah,
I know it's a little different on that big ice too. Maybe you can
zone out a little bit longer on the bigger international ice than you can on
the small North American ice. Yeah, it's some of those. It's weird
because a lot of the Finnish guys. Finland's pro league is one of the
only ones that doesn't have a regulated rink size, so they have some rinks
that are huge and some rinks that are a little closer to North American size.
And I'd be curious if I really had the time to do it,
I'd sit down and go through and see what his games look like there,
because there's a chance some of those guys really do thrive more on the bigger
surfaces, and then the games where they're playing on the slightly smaller ranks,
it almost seems like they struggle a little more because their timing is not quite
right. So there is a way to go and check and measure the rink
sizes against the game performance and see. But that's more work than I think
necessarily needs to be done unless I get really bored this summer. But now
I think he did seem like he lost focus a little bit in just a
couple games, and it wasn't like it was a consistent thing throughout the games.
There were just a few moments here and there, and a couple of
the moments that I saw it, he ended up making the save anyway,
so it's not like it completely burned him. But it's something that I flagged
as a ah, that's not what I want to see him doing. So
we'll see. I think hopefully he'll get more games for Harvard next year,
that would be my assumption, and we'll see if it seems like he levels
out a little more. Some of those guys that do rely on the rhythm
of the game, when they are out of game play, out of game
action for a week or so at a time, it has impact their game
pretty heavily, so he might just be one of those for sure. Thanks
for giving us your instincts on the Vancouver Canuck prospect goalies. We'll be back
right after this. Do you the Dynasty dig. We're here to talk Dynasty
dig. We're here to talk Vancouver Canucks and a couple of basic things you
need to know before we start. They got the number eleven pick coming up
in this twenty twenty three NHL Entry Draft. They have their own first,
third, fourth, and sixth round picks. They acquired Toronto's third rounder for
lucchen Detroit's fourth rounder in the Heronic deal, which they is we mentioned.
They also gave away a first in a second in the future, and the
Rangers fourth in the Matte deal. Victor has the system ranked thirty eight overall,
and we're starting with the no brainer. Who is a Victor? Jonathan
Lecremaki is going to be our no brainer. It was a weird season for
Leamaki overall, not great. I almost didn't make him my no brainer just
because it was really, quite frankly, a pretty disappointing showing for him,
especially based on expectation, based on his pedigree and all these kinds of things,
so we were Yeah, it was definitely not ideal, but we'll talk
a little bit more about that in terms of the details of what went on.
He was the fifteenth overall pick in case you forgot last year twenty twenty
two. His club, dru Garden's IF was in the Hockey els Venskin this
season and he had nine points in twenty nine games there with them. Really
not a strong showing, but he did have fifteen points in fifteen games and
the promotion qualification playoffs, which was pretty awesome. He had five goals and
tennissists there, so his five goals during the fifteen playoff games were more than
the three he had the entire regular season in twenty nine games. So really
disappointing during the regular season from a goalscorer perspective, but certainly picked it up
in the playoffs. He did all he could, but these Your Gardens fell
one game short of getting promoted back to the SHL. Moto Hockey earned that
distinction, so they'll be back in the Shl's Your Gardens back in the akaels
Fenskin. But like an Amaki is going to be in the SHL next year,
he's going to be on loan to orebro Hk, so that's good for
his development and we'll have to see how that goes. He's still, i
would say, a ways away from being NHL ready, but we'll see what
other people say about that too. He is really young, though it's important
to remember he's a July late July birthdate, and so he's been eighteen all
this season. He was seventeen all his draft season, so he's got a
little bit more runway. I would say, we have some new analytics to
talk about. We have a new partnership with sport Contract and so we will
be talking about things in a different way than we did with instad And one
of the things I love about them that you can see as a patron if
you look at the show notes is they have a bunch of analytics and per
sixty stats, so you can see in really clear, colorful bars what kinds
of things he's really good at and what he's not and so good at.
In terms of Lekamaki's playmaking, his slot passes and primary shots are not great,
but his ozone passing is really good. In transition, he's mostly he
has some issues with entries, but his percent exit and entry is overall pretty
good. He is someone who shooting is a big part for him, so
his shots per sixty are average to maybe a little bit high, and defensively
is something that you don't necessarily think of him as being good at. But
his course against per sixty was actually pretty good, and his force dumpins we're
really not bad. But the rest of his expected goals and some of these
things weren't as good as you would like. And that kind of makes sense
based on the sort of struggles he had during the year. I imagine if
we broke all this down in the playoffs, it would be a completely different
story. But we need to hear a little bit more about what makes this
player tick, Jesse, and so you're gonna let us know what our scout
thinks. That's right, we're shaking it up FHL scout Jeremy's report. I'm
going to let you know what Jeremy saw to compliment what you've heard skating for
Jeremy's above average good at making shark turns. Consider it more shifty or agile
than fast. But the balance and strength is there. Jeremy has his puck
handling as elite. Clear strength is with the puck on the stick. Sometimes
it looks like he has a string. Nobody can catch him, and he
does all this while keeping his head up or knowing where to play a pass
for his teammates. The shot above average as well for Jeremy's got a good
shot when he chooses to use it, maybe doesn't shoot as often as he
should. And the IQ of vision and anticipatient panic meter just average for Jeremy
doesn't seem to have a particular knack for getting open or anticipating the play,
but again great if the puck's on his stick. Defense average looks a little
disengaged in the defensive zone. Don't like hearing that, but often following a
stick length with his stick parallel to the ice. Best asset vision and passing
biggest concern effort level and consistency effort level, defensive issues of being average.
I don't know top tier potential where would put Jeremy put him Tier two probably
is the top tier potential. Most likely tier is tier three. Bash is
going to be limited per Jeremy's looks, but he does. He does have
points potential. It's just not elite. He's the type of guy that's going
to be frustrating in leagues that include peripherals, mid tier producer and points only
league. And if he's going to pick a style comparable Toivo Tara Vinen similarities
in vision and passing abilities long but the Shad don't utilize enough. So yeah,
Lacaramaki ability to be a secondary piece in a top six line, not
an offensive driver on his own. And now we're going to talk about Mason
Black, the NHL rank king himself and the comparison he put out for the
people on the Twitter, Jonathan Lacaramaki versus Nick or Robertson. That is an
example he put out on There is one thing we can look at PNHL E
similarity scores. We've got some Scott Artinal Keeper Bellows and Tyler Sagan, but
Lakiramaki and Robertson have some similarity out there in the voting. And he also
we also have a little bit of a look on Joakim Kimmel for this guy.
But in terms of the vote out there, Victor Lakarimaki sixty nine percent,
Nick Robertson thirty one percent, and as we know, Victor speaks of
Nick Robertson as Robertson the Lester in the Stanley Cup semi finals have taught us
that if nothing else, or the Stanley Cup play offs, that he is
right. So Victor Lacarimaki or Nick Robertson, it's a good one, I
think because both of disappointed a little bit. I think Robertson maybe for a
little bit longer, just in terms of how long we've been waiting for him.
He was a twenty nineteen second round pick. Also really young for his
draft here, so he's still only twenty one, and he didn't play a
lot of games this year. I think there were some injuries and that has
continued to be the case. And part of it maybe just because he's a
little bit small. He's five eleven one eighty and he's twenty one. He's
probably not growing anymore. Is a little bit on the smaller side, gets
plays really fast, kind of gets bumped around a little bit. So there's
that sort of disappointment of it, is he ever going to hit? Is
he ever going to be a thing? Versus Lekatamaki, who had a lot
of promise in his draft here and then really has cooled off quite a bit.
I guess you would say in these types of situations, Jesse, I
generally leaned towards the guy who has failed to disappoint me for as long.
So in that case, I'm going with the people and let at Amaki.
I still have my reservations about him, and I think that Robertson could still
end up being the better player. Part of it is the situation that he's
in. It's going to be it's gonna be tough to break into this lineup.
It sounds like some changes are coming, so maybe he will get an
opportunity in Toronto. Like an Amaki, though, is really the one forward
that you would really lean on in terms of fantasy in Vancouver. Although there
are some other forwards that certainly have other skills and do other things that might
be more interesting or valuable to the team as a whole, but he's the
one you want in terms of a fantasy perspective. So it's nice to have
the best forward from a team, and that would be like an Amaki.
Yeah, I agree. Let's go back to the wide end of the funnel
with Lakamaki rather than the narrow end with Robertson. You mentioned he was a
big forward on this team. I understand that your need to know. Prospect
is a defenceman. Who is it Victor your real could draft step. That's
k U d r y a v t Sev And he's a nineteen year old
six foot two hundred pound left handed d He was taken just this past draft
in the seventh round, and yes, we are talking about a seventh round
draft pick. He had a pretty good season though, and that's part of
that's part of why we're here talking about it. He is Russian as he
sounds, but he is not in Russia, and so that's good, I
guess in terms of his ability to maybe progress up the ladder. He played
the last two seasons in the HL for this Sue Greyhounds. He was in
the Loco yaroslav system before that in twenty twenty twenty one and he was in
the MHL there. So anyways, this past season he had fifty points in
sixty seven games. That was after thirty nine points in sixty eight games in
his draft years. So fifty points in sixty seven is pretty good, I
would say for a D plus one. Looking at his tracking data on Mitch
Brown's tracking, he has not so good in terms of his shots for sixty
really low and so that the shots aren't going to be great, but really
pretty good in terms of expected A ones and slot passes. A lot of
good transition work being done defensively, good expective, primary point involvement is really
high. So I think there's a little bit more here for Crew Draft step
and part of it might just be based on the team there and Sue and
so that that's something that maybe can evolve. He's gonna be nineteen the rest
of this year, so he's not eligible to be in the HL, so
he's going to be back in the OHL for his third season there, and
well, we will have to wait at least two three years, I would
imagine, until he has a chance to break it break into the NHL.
But Jesse, you're gonna let us know what our FH scout has to say
about kill kudraft Stev. That's right, Victor. Our FHL scout. Buston
says that Crew Drafts has some impressive growth from the start of the season to
the end. A well rounded defender managed to improve upon everything he's done well
to solidify the best aspects of his game, but still looks to take an
even bigger step that will decide his potential NHL upside. Skating very good,
very strong, seemed like a weakness in the past, but Austin thinks that
it improved over the season and it looked a lot more relaxed. Puck Handling
slightly above average, good puck control. Vision looks to be the driving factor
of his mobility, but puck handling is also quite good. Shot average.
He's got a strong shot, he's not afraid to use it. He isn't
an elite shooter, but he has a good bit of comfortability with shot attempts.
Could have a big scoring increase. Therefore, next season in the OHL,
if he leans into that. Offense IQ very good. Probably the best
aspect of his game. I like to hear that and one of the defining
reasons he's been able to grow as a player. He's a guy who plays
the pro. More he plays like the pro, the more he plays out
there, constantly reading the game at a high level, and if he's going
to make the NHL, his intelligence will be a big reason why. Defense
good. Not all that physical, but does make up for that with mature
and protective game. Best asset mentality. One of the smartest players in the
OHL has the awareness to know what aspects of his game need the most fine
tuning. That's why you hear about improvement, I imagine, and biggest concern
growth. He's shown strong growth, but as a DY plus two next season,
he's going to need to expand on his game as well. All around
game strong, but it needs to build on his game and find strategies to
take a high end aspect to make his game more difficult to play against and
top tier potential. At his best, Austin thinks he could be a consistent
third or fourth defenseman who can defend well in puck battles get a few points
as well. If he shows the confidence he has with the puck. Double
digit goals could be possible. Potential to be a pesky player who won his
best night a goal seeking forward just can't beat. But then also most likely,
Austin could see him on a team's third line a high end hller as
well. How he progresses in the next couple of years will determine that.
In a stylistic comparable, he comes with Dmitri Kolakop but potentially better offensive numbers.
Mason Black, the NHL rank king throughout Jorian Donovan as a potential comparison
here, and we also have in addition to Donovan out there, we have
a couple of other comparisons. Matt Carl one of them that got looked at,
and you can see more on that if you get into our patron notes.
But Thriv versus Jorian Donovan was the poll that Mason Black, the NHL
Rank King, put out there on Twitter, and Kudreyetzev is the winner fifty
five to forty five over Orient Donovan. Do you agree with that or do
you want to go a different way in this vote? Yeah? I think
that's It's one of those things where I think that kudraft Stev has a little
bit more to offer. He's a little bit smaller than Donovan. They're both
fairly young in terms of their development. Their birthdays aren't too much of part,
so there isn't too much that separates them there. I think the production
is a little bit higher for draft Stef and I like that part a little
bit more, but both of these guys are probably not too much different in
terms of their projective outlook. It's interesting the comp with Matt Carl because I
saw a lot of him in San Jose and he was someone who he came
out of college and had so much potential and he looks so good at times,
but he just you couldn't defend on a regular basis enough to be able
to unlock his offense. And I think that's a pretty underlooked part for a
lot of a lot of these guys, And so it seems like kind of
the opposite with Ku draft seves he has better overall defensive game and no matter
of whether he can unlock the offense, but I think that's strong, that's
smarts, and the strong defensive play can help him get there and be more
consistent. Whereas Carl wasn't he was fine, he was an NHL and so
that would be a good outcome for her seventh round pick for cou draft stuff.
But I don't think either of these guys are making or breaking or fantasy
team. But I would go with the voters and lean Ku draft stuff well
tremendous. And now Victor to keep your eye on prospect. Who is it?
So this is Jacob trust Scott, probably a name you aren't as familiar
with, and I was so disappointed with luck at Imaki season that I almost
made Jacob Trustcott the no brainer but then I realized that was silly. Trustcott,
even though I have, I want you to keep your eye on him.
He's not someone who's like super high end. But I did talk about
him on a recent or Prospects report, so you might be familiar if you
listen to that episode. If not, you should. There are other good
guys in there, but Truscott was a twenty twenty fifth round pick. He's
a six one, one hundred eighty pound left handed d who was assistant captain
at Michigan and before that. He's from Michigan. He grew up in the
New junior system there. He went to the USNTDP for a couple of years,
so he was there not didn't have a prominent role, but he did
factor in there and was a really solid guy for them. Last season he
had seventeen points in forty games, and this season he had sixteen and twenty
three games, so a bit more production relative to the number of games he
played. He also had really important minutes and drove play really well. He's
a guy that has really good bash and he has experienced playing with elite defenseman
with the last name of Hughes, and that is something that Vancouver has He
played with Luke Hughes at Michigan for a good part of the year. They
are both left handed. Both Quinn, Luke and Jacob Trustcott are left handed,
and so that creates a bit of an issue. My narrative falls apart
a little bit. There would be nice if he was right handed and just
would fit in seamlessly on on Quinn's right side, but we also know that
Trustcott has played really well on his off side, and we also know that
Quinn often likes to play on his off side offensively. He can walk to
the middle and get a good shot there. But anyways, that's in the
future. Remains to be seen whether he can even get that far. But
Trustcott is going back to Michigan next year. He's a guy though, that
I could see actually coming right out of college and into the NHL after next
season, because he's already pretty NHL ready, and so he has some pretty
strong upside already, and that's nice to see. In one more year of
college is going to make him all the more ready. So might be someone
who's a little early now for some people, but if you're in a deep
league, you may just have an NHL or at the end of next season,
and that would be cool. He might come right after the college season.
Looking at his tracking data, Trustcott really excels in expected goals for sixty
and expected primary cists for sixty. Those are really off the charts in terms
of positives for him. He shoots a fair amount, got a lot of
slot plast passes. His transition game isn't as dominant as you would like,
but he is a little bit positive in those areas. And basically he just
he influences the game in a lot of ways. And Mitch Brown has like
game score, expected primary points, advantages created, and Trustcott's really good in
all those. But to hear a little bit more detail, we're going to
hear from our fractail scout, Jesse. That's right, Jacob Truscott FHL scout.
Jacob has a report no relation to my knowledge a skating average. Got
decent strides are scout Jacob says, in straight line speed, but not necessarily
explosive enough to give him great acceleration. Does have good top end speed,
puck handling, good super smart with the puck, good breakout passes on the
ice, nearly always tape to tape while he isn't necessarily dominant with the pucky
show flashes of making some nice deeks around the defense. Shot good, not
a huge goal score, is what Jacob said, although the numbers seem to
suggest otherwise. But quick release loves to shoot the puck through traffic, hoping
to get stepped or just catches the goalie by surprise. You're going to need
those dirty goals in the NHL IQ medium. When he's on this game,
very poised, will maneuver his way through pressure defense great. This is where
he thrives the most excellent defensive position positioning by having an active stick covering up
any potential shooting or passing lanes. And again, yeah, that defensive game
is his best asset. The biggest concern physical game doesn't play with a lot
of physicality for Jacob's look, and that could make it difficult for him to
retrieve and break out pucks at the next level. He's going to need to
get stronger. But the potential when you put it all together. A supporting
top pairing defenseman playing with Luke Hughes proofs he is capable of playing with higher
end play, and Jacob threw that out there too. He could see him
playing a supporting defensive role with a player like Luke Hughes or Quick quinn Use,
even if they are different types of players. Most likely tire top six
defenseman in there somewhere, worst case scenario, becomes a reliable bottom pairing defenseman,
and the stylistic comp that he's thrown up there is Anton Strawman. Both
play responsible two way defensive games, capable of pairing with elite level defenseman.
So overall a reliable two way defenseman, good puck skill, great defensive awareness
and ice shot effective in his own zone. And he had a great junior
season with Michigan, but next year will be the year he's got that chance
to take the big step forward as the leader of that Michigan Wolverine team.
In terms of his NHL E, a guy who's going to be put out
there in our in our Mason Blackpole, Jack Pert is the guy we're going
to be looking at here with Jacob True Scott and in terms of the p
NHL E similar score, Eric Jellinas, Brandy gool Mattia Samuelson. I know
Samuels is coming up on a future episode. True Scott, Prescott and Pert
Jack Pert, which one of those would Mason Black's pull come up with and
it's Jack Pert by a landslide over Jacob Trustcott seventy four to twenty six percent
Victor Is that an accurate assessment of these two guys? I think that Pert
has a longer track record of being super relevant and someone who's interesting. And
what I love is that you can actually see this on Mason Black's app.
If you track the PNHL over time, you can see the same thing or
similar thing on the hockey prospecting in terms of like star potential and all that.
I think it's important just to it's to look at the trend, right,
and so the trend for Pert has been higher, but it trended down
a little bit, whereas Trustcott he's been up and down a little bit.
And so currently trust Good is similar to maybe slightly higher. But Pert has
a longer track record and had higher upside previously. Where they're now are crossing
in terms of their trajectory. And if you believe that trust Good is going
to really bust out next year when he has all the opportunity at Michigan,
if you think about it, he's had power, he's had hughes, he's
had other guys there. He's not going to have that next year, and
so he really could be the guy and bust Out I think. And Pert,
by the way, in case people forgot or don't know, he's been
at St. Cloud State the last couple of years and he's been on the
World junior team the last two years, and so I think that is a
couple more feathers in his cap And for that reason, I probably would take
Pert. He's in the Minnesota system and so there's a little bit more competition
there, But I still think that he's probably the better prospect. But just
in terms of what Vancouver has, I think that Trustcott has a much better
opportunity, like literally walk into the into a role as early as next season.
So I like that about Trustcout, but I would take Part. I
think that I don't know that it should be this wide of a margin,
but definitely it makes sense to me. Great. Yeah, so Jesse,
there more guys talk about. We don't have time here, but if you're
a patreon you can listen to my top ten recap per team on Patreon and
if you're interested in doing some scouting or anything like that, you can shoot
me a DM on Twitter. You can check out the awesome access that we
have with sport contract as a scout and you can see all the great videos
and data that we have. So do that on Twitter, discord, or
email us if you're interest in doing that or contributing to the show. Right
with big repause, come back, it blows out the show. Hey everybody,
before we get out of here. A couple of things to remind you
of. One of them fantracks dot com. It's the place to play all
of your fan to see sports leagues. You can customize your trading, draft
picks, you can do three way trades, you can do rookie drafts,
you can customize rookie eligibility. There are literally hundreds of scoring settings. Do
you think I'm kidding? I'm not kidding. And the minors player pools are
unmatched. Everybody is there, and if somebody isn't there, send a little
evidence to them on a little form and they will become there. Pretty Much
everything you can customize there, so I won't get into it. If you
have questions, hit me up, but start your leagues on fantracks. Movie
your leagues to fantracks for next year. The hockey is already opened the water's
worm and it is fine. Fantracks HQ has lots of fantasy content podcasts for
fantasy basketball, baseball, and football. In addition to this here hockey podcast
and also articles. There are fantasy hockey articles, but there are also articles
for all the other sports they do, and they do like ten. There's
a ton of sports. A couple of things also to mention as we get
out, Nate Duffett, our new producer. He has been doing yeoman's work
helping us to prepare this show. He's not just a scout, he is
one of our FHL scouts. But thank you to Nate. Welcome aboard,
and we definitely need to give him a shout for all the work he did
on this episode. We're brought to you by Dauber Hockey and Dauber Prospects.
We're proud to be a part of not only the Fantrak's podcast network, but
also the Dauber Prospects network. Victor is an editor at Dauber Prospects and you
can follow his work there and you should. You should. He's doing a
lot of good writing around the draft. He does editing. I think he
still does some Detroit Redwing stuff from time to time there, so stick in
there. He has a podcast with Peter Harnling, the you know, Big
the Big Khuna. Over there at Dabber Prospects they do a show called Dabber
Prospects Report that is sort of the rebooted Daber Prospects Radio. He and Victor
and it's great stuff. It's strictly strictly prospect based, so it's a great
compliment to what you can hear here. I do a second show as well.
It's called Dynasty Sports Life, and on it I talk about all the
different Dynasty sports basketball, baseball, football, and occasionally hockey, particularly cross
sport. Right now, I'm doing a lot to do with a new four
sport league that's going to have a few fantasy Hockey lifers playing the hockey element
and playing other elements of it. We're going to have a lot of fun
this summer. If people get interested in four sport, hockey might be a
place to listen, and frankly, a lot of strategy really can crossover between
sports. You heard about Patreon and the intro, but feel free to join
up with that. The Tidy League is coming. We are already filling some
of those open spots and the new league of the tiered Dynasty League, so
people should look into that. If you want to be a part of our
discord, that is free, hit us up. You can email as Fantasy
Hockey Life at gmail dot com. Hit up Victor on Twitter viic tr n
O one two or myself Fan Hockey Life. Follow us on Twitter while you're
there, and hey, while you're following things. Follow the podcast on Apple
Podcasts, on Spotify. Wherever you follow your podcast, leave us a nice
rating and review. Thank you for listening. This has been a great time
talking about our friends to the Pacific Northwest, the Vancouver Canucks, and until
next time, keep living that fantasy hockey a life.