Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks.
Speaker 2: Here sits.
Speaker 3: Your source of information and analysis to help you win
your fantasy hockey league. Block off, hot a step, hit on,
stay lock. Here's your hosts, Jesse Sevier and Victor Nuno Fannessey.
Speaker 4: Hockey lie back once again to talk fantasy hockey. I
am Jesse Severe Fan Tracks. That is Victor Nuno, a
VP ringside. Victor, how you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing awesome, Jesse. How are you doing, my friend?
Speaker 4: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm ready to talk
some more fantasy hockey. It never sleeps. My rookie drafts
are done. I'm all geared up, in no place to
go until October. So yeah, I couldn't be happier. I
think people could come and share those positive feelings, those
positive vibes in our discord. It's a place to do
that sort of thing, and I'd recommend it. All you
have to do to get in is to hit Victor
and myself up at fan Hockey Life at Victor Nino
twelve on x or Fantasyhockeylife at gmail dot com. Victor,
what else should people know about today?
Speaker 3: There's lots of extra content if you're interested in that. Obviously,
we keep the main podcast free. We enjoy doing this
team preview series for you and trying to dig into
each team, but we do more. You can learn about
the top ten prospects per team. I have all kinds
of content behind the paywall through Patreon on the website
in terms of you can look at ranks of prospects
by team. You can look at by puckstud rating in
terms of how likely they are to hit and be
studs on your fantasy roster of forwards, d goalies, twenty
twenty fours individually player cards, looking how many hits and
blocks and shots. They all have all kinds of great
stuff there that you can get access to. You can
also get on the waitlist for the tiered Dynasty and
if you want help with your entry drafts or figuring
out what to do with your team roster doctor, those
are all things that you can get through thepatreon dot
com slash Fantasy Hockey Life. If you want to support
the show, Jessie, that's.
Speaker 4: Right, and we will be right back in a moment
to talk Vancouver Canucks. We welcome back to the show
from the Vancouver Sun. Patrick Johnston, how you doing today, Patrick.
Speaker 2: Oh good, guys. Raining today feels like fallow hockey's around
the corner.
Speaker 4: Raining in Vancouver ever, Oh yeah, it would be understandable
for you to be in the mood to get back
to hockey, because Vancouver Canucks hockey was some pretty good
stuff last year. What a year its standing points? Yeah, yeah,
way more than I expected coming to the year, and
I'm sure a lot of others too. Sixth most goals,
six fewist against. They held a three to two league
in round two of the playoffs until Connor McDavid happened,
as he frequently does. Between twenty thirteen and last year,
the Canucks had a total of two playoff appearances and
one series win. So it had been a long time
coming for the Canucks fans, but last year was a
nice jump forward. The team is typically there's this seems
like there's a lot of drama around the Kuks. I
don't know, I'm not in Vancouver, you are, Patrick, but
it seems like there's some drama. But this is a
pretty darn good Canucks team. Is the view from BC
that they are going to be firmly in the Stanley
Cup picture this year or they're worries that big jump
last year is gonna slide back down to the middle
a little bit.
Speaker 2: Things are never boring, That's what I said. I've been
covering this team for six years now. It's never been boring,
even when they're winning. And now, of course you guys
roll the tape of our discussion from last summer or
I'm sure everything I said was wrong. Yeah, the vibes
are good. The team obviously massive step forward last year.
The playoff run was I think the consensus was that
the playoff run was as great as people have maybe
been hoping for. Right Like, they hadn't been in the
as you noted, had barely been in the playoffs the
last decade. The one run they really had was in
the summer of COVID in twenty twenty, in the bubble
when nothing I think really can be pointed to as
being a predictive thing that was going down the road.
It was a tough time for everybody involved. But a
lot of these players were in that window. I mean,
you've asked them going into the playoffs, guys, is there
anything to be drawn like? It was a tough experience, Bobb,
And they're like, no, I don't even want to talk
about it. So this season was a real, real stepping stone,
a real kind of announcement by a group of players
who wanted to prove that they were good and hadn't
been good. Ian Cole, who was not with the Canucks
anymore but came in and was brought into a sort
of veteran presence, the guy who would bottel attitude if
you will, had said, as we were going down the stretch,
I talked about this at one point, and he said,
the thing that we need to understand is that being
a good team, good teams make the playoffs and then
things get hard. And but the conversation he had said,
he came in at the beginning of the year and
he would ask his new teammates, do you guys think
we're a good team? And then we go yeah, I
think so, then why didn't you make the playoffs? And
good teams make the playoffs? Was his point. You guys
need to dig deeper. You may think you're good, but
there's so much more, which is I think Also Rick Tackett,
like coach Rick Talckett, will tell you that the biggest
challenge of a coach is to get the player to
a place they didn't know they could get to, and
a lot of guys on this team got there, and
I think their feeling is in the organization is that
there's still a ways to go for a number of players,
even those guys that maybe did take a step forward,
a guy like Quinn Hughes or a guy like j T. Miller,
certainly Elas Petterson who struggled down the stretch in the playoffs,
that's a guy they believe can step forward and become
something more than he's been. So yeah, the vibes are good,
there's confidence is high. Obviously, made a bunch of changes
again this summer. It's gonna be a different team, similar style,
but a different team in the end than the one
we saw in the playoffs last year.
Speaker 4: Let's start with the stars of this team.
Speaker 2: JT.
Speaker 4: Miller. Fifth year in Vancouver, and it was his best yet.
He crossed the century line in points for the very
first time, set a career high with two hundred and
seventeen delightful hits. Fantasy managers saw Miller rise from a
cool player who's a guy pushing to a guy who's
pushing for top ten production. Now he's just that good.
He's elite. An amazing example of a guy who didn't
debut is a superstar, but seems to get a little
bit better, a little bit better every single year and
push it as career goes along. Have we finally reached
the top of the mountain for JT. Miller? Or at
coming into his thirties, is their possibility that he could
even raise his game further?
Speaker 2: He is thirty one now, and that's the thing to
remember here, and I think we all have seen the
aging curves and what happens you hit thirty and that
production starts to fall up the cliff. Now, Miller has
been an interesting, fascinating, really story in Vancouver, a guy.
Let's be clear that Jim Benning did not have many
hits in terms of player acquisition during his eight years
as canucktion general manager. But JT. Miller clearly was a
home run. And they got a player who, you know,
two very good teams had moved on from. The Rangers
had decided to move on from him. The Lightning, who
were in a cap crunch figure looked at who they
had and said, this is not a guy we're going
to stick with. He was good enough for them to
try out and take him into the playoffs. But at
the end of the day, they went, Nope, this isn't
a guy that we're going to hang on to. We've
got other options. And so at that point you're looking
at a player that, hey, he's good, but what's going
on here? But since he's been in Vancouver point per
game player, a guy that scored more than thirty goals
three years in a row. That's the thing that people
maybe miss. But this is the guy that puts the
puck in the net. He's not just an offensive distributor.
He does everything. This is the modern power forward. You
talk about the career high and hits. This is a
guy who gets in on the pock, makes stuff happen.
I'm sure we're going to talk about his number one bringer, Brockbster,
very soon. A guy that's found the perfect complimentary piece
in Brockbester. These two works so well together. Miller's an
unbelievable passer. I remember almost from the get go that
we had you'd see him make these passes and just
it's a thing of beauty to watch a guy. The
way the guy manages the puck, the way the guy
hits teammates on the tape. He is just such a
fun player. But yes, thirty one and heading into the
second year of a big seven year contract that he
signed with the Canucks. This guy right now is fascinating
to see where he's going to go. You look at
the history of all time great Canucks and there have
been a lot of very good players in this town
over the years. Miller is now stepping into that category.
He's going to be one of the Canucks all time names.
And now the question is can't how much longer can
carry it on. The Canucks obviously need him to be
a top center. He's not a perfect player. He's had
some defensive flaws, obviously has improved them, has gotten a
lot better. I think the Canucks system, which is a
much more puck possession focused game, has suited him really well,
and we can see the results career hiding points an
ascended player got ninety nine points two years ago in
a season that was total chaos. Step back a little
bit and maybe the assist. Playing with Brockbster has been
a huge thing for him and he has created opportunities
for the wingers he plays with. As we see goalscoring
go down, he is still going to create opportunities for
his teammates. He's going to be a guy that's going
to keep producing in that way anyway for a few seasons. Yet,
I think.
Speaker 4: Elias Peterson is the next man to talk about. Most
of his box score stats actually trended a little bit
down from the career year the year before, except for
again a phenomenal one hundred and twenty five hits that
was a sick sixty seven percent jump from his prior high.
I don't know it was suddenly he just decided to
start hitting people. Maybe he was.
Speaker 2: Started counting more hits here or something. None of us
thought that, but.
Speaker 4: There you go. We need to know about that one. Yeah,
shots were down twenty percent for Peterson, points down thirteen percent,
and he skatered a minute less per night. That said,
his overall impact in the advanced metrics, so the Canucks
seems to have improved last year. Face off percentage went
from fairly weak to a positive, his defense is holding steady,
and he gets Selki votes every year these days? Is
Alias at his ceiling now? And what do you think
next year is going to look like?
Speaker 2: I think the thing to understand about him is a
season of two halves. He was NHL like people forget
he was the NHL Player of the Month in January,
like he had this incredible run going. The Canucks went
on this really top Eastern road trip at the beginning
of the year in January, and they dominated. They beat everybody.
It was kind of a season defining road trip. Obviously,
to that point they'd been playing really well, picking up points,
they were top of the league. They're doing everything right.
But still we looked at that January schedule so that
this is a beast and they kicked butt, and a
lot of it was because of the play of LEAs Petterson.
Then the All Star break comes and everything fell off
the cliff, and he kept in scaysing, no, I'm not hurt. No,
I'm not hurt. No, I'm not hurt. But nobody could
figure it out, and he revealed it in the air.
It turned out he'd been dealing with some sort of
knee tendonitis, but even the team downplayed that. He didn't
really seem convinced. He wanted to talk about an excuse,
but he struggled down the stretch. He struggled in the playoffs. Now,
some of that, it is worth noting of who he
was playing with. They trade away Andrey Kuzmenko, who obviously
was never going to repeat the season he had but
he was so poor through the first half of the season,
then said this just isn't worth it anymore and moved
on from him. And he had been Petterson's ser number
one winger for the longest time. Ilia mckayev had been
signed to being another guy that was meant to play
with him. kV forgot how to score, like here was
a guy. He actually recovered from n injury, was skating
a lot better by the end of the year, but
just couldn't put the puck in the net anymore. And
there were a number of opportunities, I think, most notably
in Game seven against the Oilers, where he hasn't He
had chances to bury it and he couldn't do it.
And so that's a few more points right there for Peterson.
He puts himself into the nineties, right, so, even as
he was struggling, he was still finding ways to produce.
They just weren't going in the net. Now, that does
not absolve him from the poor play overall. He wasn't
driving the net the way he had He wasn't shooting
the way he had, and that is the sirt of
question mark Kenny. I think he'll get back. I have
no doubt about that. We've seen too much from him
over the years. He's a player who's been a dominant
player at every level. Last fall or sorry, last spring
was the first time in his career he really had
any sustained amount of struggle. I think mentally that was
the challenge. How to deal with that, how to overcome that,
And that's I think going into the season. His coach
has said all the right things. Lik Talkt is an
incredible motivator. He is a real players centered coach. He
cares about his players, and so the project in front
of Petterson is to basically not have that happen again,
just become the confident, dominant player that he's always been. Obviously,
he's getting Jake Debrest PLAYSTHM. He's gonna be interesting if
Daniel Sprong plays with him. Sprong is obviously an offense
first kind of guy, but a very creative player that
knows Petterson pretty well. Will be interesting to see how
that shake. So. Obviously, Neils Hoglander could be a factor
in that as well, though I think he's more likely
to be a depth winger, but there's certainly offensive options
to go with Petterson that we just didn't really see
very much last year, and having guys who can play
with him, I think is going to do huge things
for his game.
Speaker 3: They already alluded to Brock Bessler, and of course we're
going to talk about him next. And he had a
career season in terms of point pace seventy four. He
also had queer highs for games played, goals, power play points.
Things were definitely great for Bester seemed to be pointing up.
I did notice an interesting trend. Every three seasons he
seems to go over a seventy point pace and under
in between. I'm not sure if that's just randomness or
what the case may be, But Patrick, what do you
think about Brock? Do you think he's gonna stay over
a seventy point pace next season or does he regress
as the trend has suggested previously.
Speaker 2: I'll point out to one other thing that this was
really only the second season of his career where he
really was healthy all the way through the year. Last
year twenty two twenty three, pretty healthy but still missed
eight games. But his general course had been to miss
ten to twenty games through injury. His rookie season, he
was on He was a contender for the Calder in
his rookie season, and then he has a terrible injury
bit and smashing his back into an open door at
the bench, knocking out for the rest of the season.
He would have scored thirty goals as a rookie and
he never really come close to that. His second year,
he was again pretty good, but had an injury during
twenty nineteen twenty. He had suffered a grain I think
it was a groin injury and was out when the
season came to an end. And that had been a frustration.
They had been an ongoing question mark will he be
able to find any kind of durability, and last year
he did. The Cannucks asked him to change the way
he prepares for the season, the kind of exercise and
the routines that he was doing at home in Minnesota.
He'd always gone with a particular coach. He was a
strength coach he was familiar with. The Canucks said, would
you consider using this other guy that we think would
be a better fit for you. He went for it.
We saw the results. He was came in fitter than ever,
came in stronger than ever, and like I said, built
this partnership with JT. Miller. That was a fabulous thing
to watch night and night out. And the biggest thing
with Bassar, I would say, more than anything. And it
wasn't something that he wouldn't go to the net before,
but he started finding the pucks again around the net,
and I think that came back to that strength thing
that improved agility. If you look, I don't have it
in front of me, but if you go and look
the number of backhand goal goals he's scored this year.
Back end goals is usually a sign of a scramble,
whack and pucks in. He's scored a lot of goals
on top of the crease and that's a part of
his game he's been constantly working to develop. I absolutely
think it's it's hard to predict a guy scoring forty
goals again, But then again, we're in a high offense
environment now right. I think he's a safe bet to,
assuming he stays healthy, a safe bet to score thirty
goals again. Still only twenty seven. It's also a huge
year for him right contract year. He could be a
free agent next summer, and he's got a lot to
play for this year. He's going to be very motivated
to show everything, and he's done all the right things.
He's got a great, high character player, a guy who
really plays with passion and has long wanted to be
the player he was last season, and I don't think
there's any doubt he's going to try to make that
happen again.
Speaker 3: All right, what's good stuff on Bessera. Let's talk about
Jake Debrust Now. He regressed last season to a forty
one point pace after hitting a sixty four point pace
the previous season in Boston. Then obviously in the offseason
signed a seven times five point five five million dollar
contract with the Canucks. It seems like there's a top
six spot for debrask either with EP forty or JT. Miller.
Both would be a boost for his potentially a boost
for his point totals from last season. So Patrick, is
that how you see it? And if I put the
over and under at sixty point pace for Debresk, which
are you taking for him next season?
Speaker 2: I think it over. He's gonna end up playing with
Petterson probably start. I think the feeling is that's the
slot that makes the most sense. My sense is just
talking for people, haven't scenes that's what they want to see.
If it works, obviously write it down on paper and
now you actually then you actually have to go do
it on the ice. But yeah, I would. I think
he's a strong candidate for an over a guy that
lent nineteen goals this year, but really look at his
career path right like twenty seven to twenty five, twenty seven, Like,
this is a guy that's been scoring in the twenties,
and certainly when he's been healthy, he's been able to
produce other than last year, a real outlier in terms
of his production, turning twenty eight in October, still in
the prime s career and let contract that I know
you guys are talking with fantasy hockey, but the contract
was perfectly primed for this team. It was a perfect number,
it was a great term. He's gonna be a great fit,
I think on the team, the way he wants to play.
It's certainly a player that Rick Talkeett I know, is
excited to bring in. So yeah, listen, there's a guy
that I that he's got a great upside, and I
think there's every reason to think that he's going to deliver.
Speaker 4: Hey, no problem talking contracts. Patrick we Bicker and I
played a couple leagues where we use those contracts.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: The team, we've got a couple more forwards to hit.
We'll do a little bit more rapid fire. First, we
got Connor Garland versus Daniel Sprong. Both of them about
the same point space mid to upper forties last year,
both of them pretty much healthy all year. Garland, of course,
even though he's only one year older, has about five
times a salary he's he's been around, and he came
in as from another team. So Garland and Sprung, which
one you got for next year?
Speaker 2: I think you still gotta go with Garland just because
he's a two way player, and that's always been the
knock on Sprong. The Canucks know it's a bit of
a gamble with him. They know that he can produce,
but the question is can strung outplay The sort of
liability is away from the puck Garland, that's never been
a question. Listen, his contract might be a bit higher
than you would expect, then you would want for a
guy that really is a play and plays the third liner.
But he's a guy that keeps producing in the end,
mostly on the second power play unit. Here the second
power play unit doesn't play a ton, and yet he
keeps producing twenty goals from a guy I think he
had two or three goals going Christmas. The way that
line took off him and Dakota Joshua playing with the
first Teddy Blueger or first pu Suitor and then Teddy
Blueger just took off and became their best line for
a many nights, especially as Peterson started to struggle. And
he's become a player that really stirs the drink, really
dragged every coach that's haad Am or Vancouver talks about
how he drags them into the fight. Just a fantastic
little player and a guy that I think you have
every reason to think going to be once again, you know,
punching away. It's towards fifty points. He's a consistent player.
If the coach trusts him, he's gonna he is going
to keep playing strong. As a bigger question mark in
my mind.
Speaker 4: Well, slide a little bit further down the depth chart
for two more forwards, Dakota Joshua Nils Hoglander, both of
them a few points fewer the points pace for the
two of them, both kind of hovering around forty Hoglander
of course, significantly younger than Dakota Joshua. Yeah, neither one
of them play as many minutes. What do you think
of these two fellows. Joshua throws a ton of hits,
so I love yeah for that.
Speaker 2: Joshu was a really interesting player. Obviously won himself a
big rays this summer because it was played eighteen goals.
He would have hit twenty, but he had a hand injury,
gotten a fight in Chicago, and I guess it was
late February and missed it about a month, and I
you know, had some moments in the playoffs, struggle a
bit in the playoffs, but in the end eight goals
thirteen and thirteen or sorry, eight points in thirteen games.
I mean like that. He was played as a third liner.
They got through line production out of him. He's an
interesting X fact player because of the way he plays.
He's a very smart player. The Canucks originally signed him
because they saw a guy who'd be able to help
with penalty killing, and we're hopeful he had some could
grow some of his offensive game and he's become this
two way player and like you said, a four checking force.
He's a very unique four checker. Playing with Garland a
bit of a we always talk about the old movie
Twins with the two of them. But Joshua is a
guy that you wonder if he might play a role
in getting in the mix on the Miller line. Like,
he's a guy that you wonder he plays that sort
of four checking rambunctious style, smart plays all over the
ice that Miller and Bester already have. I think there's
an instinct that maybe Danton heinen Prole will start there,
but again, it'll be interesting to see how his season
shakes out. I think he's got a really interesting season
in front of him. Is obviously a great story or
the kind of depth player, depth forward the Canucks have
struggled to draft over the last ten to fifteen years.
But a lot of what he does is why he
is not a surprise, why he's successful. He's a guy
that plays is comfortable and tight. When the Cannucks drafted
of Judd Brackett, who is the Canucks amateur scouting director
at the time now Strets scouting director in Minnesota, he said,
this guy's got the best hands in the draft. I
think and we can see why. He's a guy that
can finish in tight He is an aggressive for checker.
He recognizes that to be successful as a small player,
he's a guy that has to get on the other
team's nerves and he's very good at that. And listen again,
a player doesn't play a ton on the power play.
He's on the second unit at best and still score
twenty four goals. Now, a lot of that because he
was playing with best or sorry with Peterson for a
lot of the season. That did help him a lot,
but you hit the playoffs. One goal in eleven games
in the playoffs, he was a healthy scratch a couple
of times. A player that the Canucks I think we're
hoping for more from in the playoffs and he really struggled.
So some question marks going to the season. Certainly value
there if you're looking to take a long shot, pick
a guy that will get chances. That does bury his chances.
But in terms of rule things are certainly I think
evolving there, and in some question marks around what role
he's going to play for the Canucks this season.
Speaker 3: Fantastic on the forward, let's move over to the defense now,
and of course we're going to start with Quinn Hughes.
Was a banner year for Hughes. Ninety two points in
eighty two games, thirty eight on the power play. It
was glorious. We run a league here, a fantasy hockey
life called the Tidy the Tier Dynasty. He was the
fifteenth best player in that setup. He was awesome, definitely
showing throwing more hits than he had in that first
season where he was down to just seven. I think
the obvious question here, Patrick is was this the outlier
season or can he be over a point per game,
over a point per game again next season? What do
you think?
Speaker 2: I think this is the player he is going to
be for a long time. He's only twenty four turns
twenty five in October. He came in on a mission
this season to prove that he was a dominant not
just a good defenseman, but a dominant defenseman. And people
outside the market I said, Ken Hughes defan Ken Houston
and he we would watch him and he never Here's
the thing, he never had to defend because he always
had the puck on his stick, and he in the
end did prove himself. Obviously has to play defense, but
his biggest thing is positioning, the ability to not disrupt
the other team's possessions, take the puck off off them
and move it up the ice. Phil Bronnick proved to
be a great partner for him in this regard. He
was really good at putting the puck on his stick.
That's the biggest thing is what is the other guy doing?
And they found a great partner from He'll be interested
see what happens Ronick this season, because there's some talk
they might try to put him on a separate pair,
but that pairing was so dominant and so good for
them for so much of the season it was it's
gonna be hard for them not to go back to it.
Hughes is a fantastic player. The biggest Obviously we saw
the jumping points, but really pay attention to the jumping goals.
This is a guy who made a conscious effort to
shoot more, not just to create rebounds, but to shoot
to score and he got results there. And this is
so this is a player that you're gonna want to
He should be going high in every draft that there's
no mistake that this is a guy that wants to
keep pressing to keep showing that he is a superstar
in this league. And again, like so many of the
players I've already mentioned, there's the right right mindset there,
there's the right head on his shoulders to think that
he's going to keep doing this for years.
Speaker 4: Philip Heronik. After Ronik's trade from the Red Wings, I
worried a lot he wouldn't get the same free reign
he got in Detroit and his production would fall off,
and Ronick went out quickly for the year. After arriving
in Vancouver his first season, but given a full season here,
Heronic was very productive last year. Playing next to Quinn
Hughes turns out to be a very good thing for
a good player to do. And for a guy who
scored four eight points, it was startling to see him
deal with ten and fifteen game pointless streaks in the
middle of that. So the ladder, including reaching into the
playoff games when he didn't score it until the final
two playoff games. Yea that they played. Then something happened
with this guy and do you see him producing more
like that early season success? Next year?
Speaker 2: He was dealing with an elbow injury. He never wanted
to talk about it. We all mentioned it. I think
everybody reported him at some we were just like, guys,
everyone has to understand he's wearing this huge like every
game he get an incredible amount of to He had
this incredible tape job on his right elbow, and that
was no mistake that he wasn't able to shoot. He
stopped shooting and by the end of the playoffs he
was shooting again, and that a goal he scored in
Game seven was a statement goal. Obviously the team didn't
go where they wanted to go, but a good finish
for him on the season. You're absolutely right, Like coming
in you're like, oh, is he really able to produce
because he's knotting on pp one. That's that had been
a big thing for him in Detroit, and he he
was occasionally on as a secondary kind of shooter on
the wing or whatever. But at the end of the day,
two defenseman power play setups are so rare, and rightly
it is because they don't really produce the way a
four and one goes. He still found a way to produce.
You Obviously, playing with Quinn Hughes is a massive part
of the story. He was a very good player for Hughes.
Really they partneredly made things happen. Yeah, I think he'll
produce the same right now. You notice the scoring slumps
they happened certainly the late season one was about the
elbow problem. Every reason to think this guy's can be fine, obviously,
I think that is a certain way. I think part
of that is why they're thinking about splitting them up,
because they certainly two smaller defensemen and physical stature. They're
both great skaters. They aren't open to getting overwhelmed with hits,
but teams do definitely go after them. There was no
doubt that Hughes was that. Nashville went hard, especially went
hard after Hughes with their big set of forwards. He
still kept producing. He rose above it. I think struggle
to a degree with that, and so it's gonna be
interesting to see how that shakes out. If he's playing
on a second pair, he's not going to get as
much primetime ice time. But that said, the Canducts still
have two great top end lines in the Miller line
on the Pederson line, So you know, if you're getting
to play with one of those guys, you know you're
getting your zone starts with those guys. You're still going
to get a lot of opportunity. Just to go back
you mentioned earlier. I forgot to mention the Petterson. He
says his ice time is down a minute. But know
those was too Rick talk Hat said, you know, going
into the season, he knew he didn't want to ride
those guys as hard. He obviously rode Quick Hughes quite hard.
I think their instinct is to not because they know
how important you know where and tear can be on
a player and how challenging that can be once he
hit the playoffs. So trying to save yourself to some degree.
So it's gonna be interesting to see how ice time
works out for not just Ronic, but Hughes, for Peterson,
for Miller, to see how all that factors together. But yeah,
Heronic is an interesting one. But I think I definitely
wanted to pay attention to because if he's playing with
Chris and Houses is a good player, but he's not
Quinn Hughes, and you're just going to not have as
many kinds of secondary assists there because you're not playing
with Quinn Hughes.
Speaker 4: And one more defenseman I'd like to talk about is
Tyler Myers. It's safe to say his role is a
little more on the defensive side. His ship zone starts
are amazing. Almost never does he get put in when
the Canucks are starting in the offensive zone. He is
a let's start him in the defensive zone. Stuff that
isn't good for scoring, but it's very nice for block shots.
And he also tended to throw a lot of hits. Importantly,
reports have it that he will continue to be six
' eight in the coming year. That's I'm not going
to reveal my source, but I've got that on good authority.
Is Tyler Myers expected to not only have the same
height but a similar role in the coming year With
maybe he's got a nice contract. Actually it's declining, but
it's appropriate for him. What do you expect him from?
Tyler Myers a guy.
Speaker 2: Listen, he had his best season as a Canuck this year.
It's wild to say his last year of this five
year deal that that Jim Benning signed him to in
twenty nineteen twenty before the Canucks signed him in the
summer twenty nineteen, I've written a story of basically, be
careful with Tyler Myers. He's not the player that people
think he is. He's not this two way dominant force.
He came in in such a force as a rookie
in twenty nine to ten and was a fantastic player,
scoring career high eleven goals for Buffalo. The flaws in
his game remained, which is that he struggles at times
with You'd think a guy with that much reach would
be dominant. It's actually Carson Sussi that's dominant to reach.
Tyler Myers has actually struggled with gap control and things
like that over the years in zone defending. But playing
for Adam Foot, who has been a remarkable success as
a coach, a guy who didn't have a ton of
coaching success before he arrived in Vancouver a year and
a half ago, but who's learned a lot under him
under Cirgate Gonshar, who's a brilliant he's the canucksy. They
call him the defensive development coach because he's not always
with the team. He splits his time between home and
Texas and here in Vancouver, but as always in contact
with the team. Myers really found a really nice role.
The system the Canucks play is somewhat complicated. It requires
a lot of work off the puck and a lot
of when the puckets here do this and very much
every situation has a sort of prescribed sequence. The rest
of the team is supposed to be falling. It demands
a lot, but Meyers said, every time he'd have the puck,
he said, in many ways it's more complicated. It was
easier because he'd look up and everyone was where they're
supposed to be. He didn't have to think when myer's
are the things he gets into trouble, And so he
had this season. He just had primary defensive minded guy
whose job was mostly to play shut down day, and
yet I had the most productive season is of his
time in Vancouver, twenty nine points five goals. Found a
way back to where I think the Canucks realistically, where
he needs to be in his mid thirties. He's thirty four,
like he's in the tail end of his career now,
and it's all about what he's able to do, how
he's able to manage realistically the physical decline that you
go through at that age playing this game, to where
he's always been a pretty durable player, which to credit
especially says he does block a lot of shots, does
throw a lot of hits. Yeah, he's a guy that
he's an interesting one. I think he's zero power play time, right,
All that production is at five on five, but a
player that has always played with an aggressive instinct, and
the five goals after two back to back seasons where
he'd scored just one goal. The five goals was a
statement about a guy that was feeling confident again about
jumping up in the play, and certainly the Canucks encouragement
of defenseman to do so. An interesting guy. Not someone
I would break the bank for or someone I would
draft anywhere, but late as a sort of a throw
a dart. Maybe you get some luck here on a player,
but certainly a guy that's still got a lot.
Speaker 4: Left in him.
Speaker 3: I think, all right, time to talk about the goalies,
and oh boy, the Canucks. Well there's some news I hear.
The Canucks were ranked six and expected goals against per sixty,
but conceded only the fourth ranked actual goals. Both great
team defense and goals save above expected helped drive that
the performance of saving more goals was almost entirely from
Thatcher Demko twenty five point eight three goals save above
expected at even strength. Incredible. Casey the Smith who's now
gone had point four to eight goals save above expected
and she Loves was just about average, though she Loves
had his fantastic moments for sure. The news out of camp,
as your reaction alludes to, is that Demco might not
be ready to start this season. There are that's of
course sent everyone into a frenzy thinking about what's going
to happen, what should we do?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: What do you think is the latest? Patrick? What is
the latest on Demco? How many starts do you think
each goalie is going to get? Is it going to
be the silvs show for most or half the season?
Or what do we expect out of Vancouver?
Speaker 2: Victor? This is one of those ones where it was good.
I didn't get back to as fast as I did
and we had to delay recording this. Victor came to
me ages ago saying when do you think you can
come on again? And I was like, well, they took
for ever to get back to him, and by the
time I got back to him, this weekend was the
one that made sense and so we got the Denco
news live hot out of the can here. Yeah thatcher
Demco obviously got hurting the playoffs was some sort of
knee issue has been the best. Guess, We're not quite sure,
but they've never really said. But it was some sort
of knee issue. Was working his way back, was almost
ready to go ahead of Game seven against the Oilers.
I think he was pushing to play Caducks in the
en played the cautious one, stuck with she Loves, who
had a great playoffs. Not a perfect goalie. She Loves
is not a perfect goalie, but he didn't enough to
give his chance give his team a chance to win
every night. Taking over the starter's net from Casey to Smith,
who also got hurt during the playoffs. It was a
wild run in the net, but it was such a
reminder of how important having a good goalie coach, good
goalie system is. Ian Clark, who actually the other news
this week, is stepping away as the team's serve director
of goaltending, now stepping back into more of a development
role and be a book more of a scout. Marco Cherenius,
who has a great reputation from Finland and used to
coach in the KHL, is taking over. So it should
be all right, But a statement about how strong their
goalies have been is very much about how strong of
a coach Ian Clark has been, and so Demco had
this knee injury. It was almost ready to come back,
didn't come back, and then we started hearing whispers, Oh,
something happened, and something happened. We all seem to understand
that he had some kind of procedure. We don't know
what it was. They haven't talked about it, but the
rehab has been slow and at this point everyone it's
certainly reported by the athletic and I've heard now similarly
that he's going to miss certainly the start of training camp.
We'll be ready to go for it started training camp.
I think I's just still feeling confident that he'll be
ready to go for the regular season, but we'll see.
It all means that Demco there's gonna be question marks.
He doesn't like being considered an injury prone, but of
the unfortunate truth is that he has dealt with an
injury just about every season he's been in Vancouver. It's
certainly the last three years since he's been the number one,
the primary starter, and last year in twenty two twenty three,
dealt with a pretty serious injury with his hip, missed
a couple of months, came back, hadn't been himself before
that but came back and was great to close out
the season. Last year, I was really playing very well
and then got hurt and took him a long time
to get back. Questions about whether he rushed back or not,
but certainly the Canucks insists he was healthy and ready
to go for the playoffs, even though obviously the timeline
was tight and then he got hurt right away. A
player that when he's healthy is one of the best
goalies in the league. As victory you highlighted with those
numbers are not an accident. Some of it, obviously is
the improved defensive play in front of him, but most
of it's just about his pure talent. And there are
questions about him. And he's twenty eight turning twenty nine
in December. He plays a demanding position, he has played
harder than most. There are some question marks, but if
he's on. That said, the Canucks are poking around. I
realistically they need bodies for training camp. There's talk that
they're seeing if they can convince somebody to take a PTO.
They were this week with Kevin Lankanan, who's out there
who I think has shown is good enough and deserves
a full time job. But for whatever reason is kicking
around out there. I don't think the Canucks will end
up signing anyone beyond a PTO because at the end
of the day, if they do need to pick a
goalie up to start the season, there's a lot of
I'm sure you guys are talk about this already, but
if you talked with the Detroit Red Wings, they have
four NHL goalies on their roster. They're gonna have to
waive someone Eric Comery in Winnipeg. There are guys out
there that are not going to start the season necessarily.
Look at San Jose now it sounds like they're probably
gonna go three goalies what I've heard this year, But again,
another team that's going to have an extra body that
they may have to move out. So if the Canucks
need to find someone to pinch shit to start the season,
a goalie to pinch it to start the season, it's
a safe bet that they're gonna go the waivers route.
I would be shocked if they signed anybody else, But
in the short term, you could see someone coming in
training camp to help with the load. Now, Sheilaws will
be the guy to start with. They also signed Yuri
Paterra from Vegas, who generally you know, has been a
number was number three in Vegas. He's gonna be number
three here. It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out,
whether they start with Shilovs and Petera, or whether they try,
like I said, try to find someone else to bring
in it. In the short term. Anyway, it's a big
question mark and there's a storyline that's not gonna go
away anytime soon, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: This has been some great insight on the Van Kouber Canucks. Patrick,
Why don't you let people know how they can follow
your work.
Speaker 2: I'm still in that thing called X at Rising Action. No,
I don't use it much anymore because I'm mostly annoyed
at the state of play there. But you can always
find my work at the Province dot com, which is
our main website, and obviously or Vancouver Sun dot com.
We have two papers, one company, if that makes any sense.
I won't bore you with the details of Canadian media,
but yeah, Province dot com. I'm also I've got stuff
on Instagram at pattyg on the road. I tend to
do stuff just fine, behind the scenes things and what
I can find. But that's where I'm at. I'm actually
also on blue Sky. So if you go at Rising
Action dot, Best Guy dot Social, think I got it. Anyway,
I'm in there. Find me there. I'm still doing a
bit of that and I'm always happy to answer emails
which are on my stories if you want my stories here.
Always nice. Great to be here, guys, Thanks for having
me again, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 4: Hi will be that's good. Fired pets, Oh my goodness,
long with a cat we gram Now it's your Wingley
goalie talk, but Kat Silverman Kat's instincts.
Speaker 3: Ten once again for Cat's instincts with Kat Silverman Ingold
mag talking Canucks goalies. And so we're gonna start, of
course with Archer's she loves S. I l o v s.
We learned it with she loves this year when he
played in the NHL twenty nineteen six round pick six
foot four, two hundred and fifteen pounds, pretty good numbers
in the HL again last season, like the on previous,
he also had fourteen NHL games with sort of mixed results.
I guess you could say his goal save above expected
in the NHL was neutral, which is better than Spencer
Martin can say. And the Colindilia what was similar as well,
And of course Tim Coo is a bit better looking
at his hockey prospecting, he's been in that thirties to
twenty percent range and not a lot of the guys
that are equivalent to him are bust or replacement level.
But there is a Steve Shields comp in here. Maybe
there's some hope he was a decent goalie. Kat what
are anythings tell us about She.
Speaker 1: Loves she loves his absolute liability and I mean then
the best way possible. He is a goaltender that is
so much fun to watch as long as he is
having a good game and he is on your team,
and then if he is not having a good game,
he is a lot of fun to watch for the
other team. He never goes quiet, I know. I saw
when I was looking up some highlights for him, just
to see how he did this last year. The first
video clip I found was someone had posted the Australian
breakdancer from the Olympics and said it's Arthur she lost
and I was like, yeah, that track said he's got
that throw everything but the kitchen sink at Adam's style,
which we I always get nervous seeing that in Vancouver,
because that's a team that, even though they've made some
big strides, I still get nervous about them as a
team from a structured perspective. But even though he loves
to throw a technique out the window, he seems very
self aware, and so even when he's just taking his
technique and really tossing it all over the place, you
see him maintain a good presence in terms of knowing
where he is on the ice. He's really good at
reading his teammates, really good at communicating with his teammates.
I think he's pretty good at reading plays. Sometimes it's
hard to tell because he loves to do so many
spicy things, but I don't know he's To me, he's
almost like a tweiner where I don't necessarily consider him
a prospect anymore, which is crazy because he's still pretty young.
To me, it feels like he's been in the league forever,
and he is. I think he's twenty three now, so
that's crazy to me. I truly thought that I was
going to look up his date of birth and he
was going to be twenty seven right now, but he's not.
So that makes me excited to see just so much
fun he's going to have in the NHL, because I
do think that the Vancouver Connects need goaltenders who don't
take themselves too seriously, which I think was sometimes the
problem with some of their other prospects in the past,
like Mikidi Pietro, who I adored as a goal and
I think probably didn't have the shake it off vibes
to hack it in Vancouver. So I think she loves
as a goaltender who can.
Speaker 3: Yep, and he should get a fair number of NHL
games this season because they basically have him and Demco
And unfortunately, I don't think we're saying anything that isn't
already known, but Demco has an injury history, so that
is why we saw she loves last year and why
the fortunes of the Cannucks and the playoffs shifted. But yeah,
it should be fun. I'm excited to see that as well.
And let's move now to a couple of the other guys.
So Ty Young is a twenty twenty two fifth round
pick by Vancouver six three hundred and eighty three pounds.
He was nineteen all this season, so still a very
young goalie prospect. He's a oh September eleventh birthday. It's
super young for this draft cycle. Bridge George was much
better this season, as we all saw. And last season
you talked about how you were sure he'd get drafted.
But wait, you talked about how you were sure he'd
get drafted, but he was very structured even on a
bad team. He wanted to see I think I meant
to say you weren't sure he'd get drafted, but that
he was very structured on a bad team, and wanted
to see him be a little bit more creative when
he needed to be, and wanted to see him on
a stronger team. And we got all of that, at
least most of that anyways, So that's good. And looking
at some of his comps pretty low in the teens,
Dan Clutier is probably his best comp as a replacement starter. So, Kat,
what can you tell us about Ty Young?
Speaker 1: He's an interesting one when it comes to his comps,
just because when I remember when we were talking about
whether or not I thought he'd get drafted, one of
the biggest question marks was because he's so young. He's
I believed the cud all for the draft class is
like a week after his birthday, so four days there
we go, oh yeah, because Dawson Matthews is right on
the other side of bed. So it's it's interesting seeing
that he did end up getting drafted. Vancouver decided to
take a flyer knowing that he still had ae eligibility
left in the Major Juniors, which I think was a
smart move on their part. It's going to be fun
to see now that he's played on a better team.
Looks like his confidence got better, his technique looked like
it stayed really good because he was a goaltender who
played There were some games that my heart almost ached
watching him play because he was holding his technique so
strong and it was like someone trying to hold onto
a flagpole in the middle of a tornado, and just
he was like, I will keep this technique even if
my team loses eight to four, and that is what
would happen sometimes. So I'm excited to see now that
we know that he got the technique and that he's
got the confidence, and that he's gotten some good reps
behind a much better defense. I want to see what
he can do to take his game and move it
forward a little bit. I want to see a little
bit more feed from his game. I want to see
as he continues to aid, if he gets a little
bit stronger. They don't really have too many complaints about
his game. If he had a best case scenario last year,
better team, he looked good. I think he's still a
ways out because he is. He just turned. I think
he just turned twenty a little while ago.
Speaker 3: He turned and he turns.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so he's he's young. Yeah, he's got so
much time before they really need to evaluate where he
falls in their system. And I think he already looks
pretty good, which is nice because Vancouver has a tendency
to go through goaltenders unfortunately, so I think having a
couple really strong bets in their system is something they need.
Speaker 3: Hey man, that's a good one. Good one to keep
in mind. And I was just thinking the whole time
you were talking about holding onto his technique, I was
thinking about that scene from Game of Thrones with Hodor.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what he was. He was a seventeen year
old nohodor on a t a major juniors team that
could not play defense to save their lives.
Speaker 3: I love it. Okay, we're gonna do one more, and
this is an interesting one. I think so it's Aku.
He is a twenty twenty one fifth round pick by Vancouver,
six foot four, two hundred and one pounds, and he last
year you talked about how you wanted to see what
another year of North American coaching could do for him
after he basically had just moved from the U twenty
finish HIFK team to Harvard, and he didn't play a
whole lot. I think there were some injuries. This season.
He played seventeen games, had a nine ten save percentage
two point ninety five GAA. You also mentioned last year
sometimes he would fall behind the play, but was very
explosive in general with good movements. So overall his equivalency
has been trending down. That might be partially due to
a games played issue, and he doesn't have a whole
lot of great comps. What can your instincts tell us
about cos Kan Vuo?
Speaker 1: I caught a couple of highlight He looked like he
was still having some trouble just keeping up with the play,
and some of that might be just because he's not
getting a kind of consistent game reps. And that's the
area of his game that I wanted to see improve
the most, which really comes with getting just consistent reps.
I think that's a little unfortunate that he wasn't put
in a position where he could really get in those
reps so that he could even if he ends up
not being a goaltender who has really great reads, at
the very least we would be able to tell that.
And unfortunately it made it hard for us to really
get that gauge. So I think we're still going to
holding pattern with him, unfortunately, which Vancouver can afford to be.
He is, I think, at the bottom of their prospect
pull at the moment. Not a bad thing per se,
just he is the one who is the farthest away
from being nhlready at the moment, and I think we
need to see if he can get regular starts for
Harvard this year.
Speaker 3: Awesome, Thanks so much for giving your instincts on the
Vancouver Canucks Cut.
Speaker 5: Dig Good Dynasty, dig Man's Edition, Victor, this system is
relatively low in your rankings.
Speaker 4: I believe you had him at twenty sixth at one point. Nonetheless,
we need to start out with your no brainer. Who
is it?
Speaker 3: It's the one that gives us an opportunity to play
that fantastic song from our tidy Admiral. That's Johnny Lkaramachi
twenty twenty two, fifteenth overall pick by the Canucks, five
eleven hundred and seventy two pound right shot right wing.
July twenty fourth, birthday just turned twenty as we're recording this,
so really young for his draft cycle. All along, he
had thirty one points and forty six games for a
rebro hk in the SHL, nineteen goals in those thirty
one games, and he was the SHL Rookie of the Year.
Was great for Sweden at the U twenty World Junior
Championships as well, ten points in seven games, most goals,
and he got the MVP, which I think was pretty controversial.
Quite frankly, I think there might have been better options,
but he did have a great tournament. They lost the silver.
They lost in the gold medal game to USA, so
they got the silver medal, but it was a fantastic
tournament and fast hated fantastic season for him, So really
great job for him. And looking at his tracking data
from that World Juniors, his offense was seventy six percentile,
his expected goals were actually just a little bit above average,
and his respected primary assists not that high. His transition
game was also forty fifth percentile, in his defense twenty
fourth percentile, So this is part of what I was
talking about in terms of maybe better options. The results
be for themselves with seven goals, but some of the
other off puck play was a little bit questionable. The
game scored primary point involvement, though, was very good for him.
It's really interesting though, looking at some of the other
players who were doing really well at that tournament, there
were some other pretty interesting options that had a little
bit better the results than he did. In particular, looking
at obviously Celebrini, Matthew Wood, Will Smith, Ryan Leonard all
over more, all these guys, Frank Nazzar, even guys like
Duma had more underlying expected primary goals and assists than
Lakara Mackie. He was pretty average actually, in terms of
the tracking data that Mitch Brown had, he was pretty
similar to a lot of sort of replacement level average players.
So I found that very interesting when I was looking
that up, because I watching the games didn't feel like
he was the MVP, But that's what happened. Looking at
the FHL player card for Lacara Maki based on his
SAHL games, he had some pretty great numbers. His goals
were ninetieth percentile for the league, his assists were only fiftieth.
His shots on goal were pretty high at eighth percentile,
but the hits and blocks were quite a bit lower.
So overall, his bash looks like it's going to be
closer to average with some pretty decent number of shots.
But let's hear a little bit more about a Karamaki
as a player from our FHL scout.
Speaker 4: Our Man Grant has this to say about Jonathan Lkaramaki
skating excellent acceleration and congregates separation from defenders with the
first few strides and above average agility. His top end
speed won't blown anyone away, but he can move. He
can sometimes forget to move his feet and can become
static in both the offensive and defensive zones. Passing and
handling excellent passing and handling in tight drives play. Likes
to carry the puck across the blue line rather than
dump and chase. He's very adept at gaining the line
in the offensive zone. His ability to take a pass
and borders on a leat, and his ability to find
open teammates as well. Above average. He can sometimes force
passes in dangerous areas in his own end or down
low in the offensive zone. Shooting, Lakaramaki has a great
snapshot is not afraid to shoot the puck from anywhere.
He has a drag risshot in his arsenal which is
reminiscent of Connor Bedard. At times. His shot is NHL
caliber IQ. Lakarimaki likes to handle the puck and has
a very low panic threshold with it. He has great
vision to find holes in the defense to skate into
or find an open teammate. He has very good anticipation
as the puck seems to find him at times. He
can be a threat to intercept defenders passes and strike
or checking. Not overly physical, and is more often on
the perimeter. When without the puck, he gets knocked off
the puck fairly easily and won't win his share of
board battles. His anticipation in intercepting passes and blocking passing
lanes are his strengths in for checking defense, Lakaramaki is
unlikely to be a bottom six forward in the NHL
based on his defensive play. He's fairly responsible in his
own end, can stick handle out of trouble, but he's
not gonna win a Selkie trophy. Early looks had him
blowing the zone early, but later watches had him look
more responsible. So the best asset ability to find soft
spots in the defense and his shot. Those are the
two biggest strengths. The biggest concern he can get shut
down offensively if his play is only on the perimeter
or he gets off the puck knocked off the buck easily.
The top tier outcome top six winger, first unit power
play time tier two is the potential he is not
physical at all. That's because he's certainly capable of scoring
thirty to forty goals in the NHL, putting up seventy
points at some point. Offensive skills are that good. The
median outcome bottom six NHL winger who shows flashes of
offense but struggles to become an NHL regular and is
out of the NHL after one hundred and fifty to
two hundred games. There are hundreds of fringe AHL NHL player,
says Grant, who have offensive talent but are unable to
translate that to the NHL on a consistent basis, as
they lack the defensive floor to make up for when
they aren't producing. Lacaray Mackey could become that if he
doesn't add strength and a two hundred foot NHL game,
the stylistic comparable Lucas Raymond and the final talk about him,
Lakara Macky should get every opportunity to succeed at the
NHL level. He has a few holes in his game
which will be exposed if he doesn't produce at that level.
His ceiling thirty five to forty goals, seventy to seventy
five points. Our friend Mason Black, the NHL Rinking put
out the pole Jonathan Lacara Macky versus Brayden Yeager newly
of the Winnipeg Jets, and the results are in Jonathan
Lcaramack fifty eight, Brayden Yeager forty two victor. Is that
how you rank him?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think so, And I think this poll did go
out when he was still a pit Penguin prospect, but
I'm not sure that the results would have changed too
much if everyone knew that he was traded to Winnipeg.
Jeger looks good still, but I think some of his
development is a little bit stagnated in terms of his progression,
but overall he still looks really good. But la Karamaki,
as Grant mentioned in there, he is a top six
or bus kind of player, and even though there's some
questions about his all around game, it seems to be
trending in the right direction to be good enough, and
that means that he should be able to get a
top six role and probably top power play. He is
definitely someone who can score at a professional level. We
saw him score at the World Junior who saw him
score in the SHL. He should be able to leverage
that to a significant role with the Canucks, So I
would definitely take him. Although I still am excited about
Jaeger and I think that hopefully it'll be a good
fit with him in Winnipeg. All the Winnipeg tends to
take their prospects along so slowly that there's a little
bit of concern there, But I think he should be okay.
But I think it is pretty close. I think the
all around game for Yeger is better. I think there's
a more realistic upside for him to be at least
a middle six player because his two way game is
a little bit better. But I would take the scoring
upside with Kenemaki. Looking at the p and HJA lead
between the two, it's actually going to Jaeger here with
just above eighty, whereas Lakaramaki is closer to the seventy
point range and the comps for Hieramaki a little bit
more subdued. At Heler Segan is good, but Jack Roslovik
not as exciting. Jeger has some interesting ones like baledo'brian little.
Looking at the Hockey Prospect team between the two, Lakaramaki
has trended down to ten percent, brand Yeger holding firm
at twenty one percent, and I think that the Lakaramaki
part of the reason it was hard for him to
increase his star potential is that last season was so
bad for him in terms of the production goalscorer who
doesn't score that there? The problem right there is that
if you're not doing that, then what else are you doing?
And the answer for him was not much, which we
talked about on last year's show. Looking at some other
comps for Laketa Maki, there aren't a whole lot of
great ones, but Riley Smith is one that he looks
a lot alike in this model end up being more
of an average producer. Smith is more a fifty to
sixty point guy, maybe with upside for a little more
in the right situation. I think that's probably where Lakaramaki lives,
although more goals would probably be the expectation there. Looking
at the J Fresh card, you got Lakara Maaky at
nine percent of being a star and seventy six percent
chance of being an NHL A. So pretty for sure
NHLO probability and not as much our potential as we've
come to expect from our J Fresh friend. So that's
it for Lakaramak. I do think there's some volatility in
terms of the upside, but there should be a pretty
strong offensive player. It might be limited though, based on
his off buck and all around play.
Speaker 4: Mixed up victor need to know prospect.
Speaker 3: I need to know is Tom Villander twenty twenty three,
eleventh overall pick six to one, one hundred and seventy
nine pounds, right handed. D came to North America after
playing the Roguela BK system this season in his draft
season sorry, where he played mainly in the j twenty
twenty five points in thirty eight games for Boston University.
Really strong team a lot of times playing with Lane Hudson,
which was certainly good for both three points. In seven
U twenty World Junior Championship games, he was a really
important part of that team, I would say personally more
important than the Karamake because he was keeping all the
pucks out of the net and all around really strong
defensive impacts. Looking at the tracking data from Mitch Brown,
you can see that the defense was ninety third percentile
really fantastic, seventy six percentile for a transition game, and
fiftieth were offense. He actually did see is some power
play time, but that was mostly going to Axil sending Pelika.
But he does he is someone who can do that.
I'm not sure that's going to be a mainstay part
of his game. Looking at the Fantasy Hockey Life player
card for Verlander, you can see that his bash is
really going to be below average. His hits are just
barely above average, his blocks are average, and his shots
are really low. So on average, he looks like he'll
be a thirtieth percentile for bash, his goals for sixty
or seventieth and assists ninetieth, and that's in the NCAA.
Not sure how much that's going to travel translating when
he's not playing with Lane Hudson. We'll have to see
about that. Overall, I have his puck stud at five
point three to three, so that's thirty three percent chance
of being a five out of ten. So not super exciting,
and that's probably because I'm not sure his offensive impacts
are going to translate. But to hear a little bit
more about Velander, let's hear from our Fahl scout.
Speaker 4: Jesse and our Fahl scout Grant has this to say
about Belander skating strong out of skates, slightly above average skater,
has good edges and can't accelerate to get up ice
or recover if beaten. His turn from backward to forward
on the right side can use some work in terms
of passing and handling. An accurate Chris breakout pass which
he likes to use ninety percent of the time to
break the puck out of his own end. He rarely
skates the puck out. His handling of the puck is
a bad average. He's not going to dangle through the
whole team. Shooting nice hard snapshot which he gets quickly
from the point. He's patient before shooting to make sure
he has traffic in front of the net, and he
likes to get himself to the middle of the ice
iq Wellandra scans a lot in his own end and
seems to know where the opposition and his teammates are
at all times. He can skate himself into trouble because
of his patients with the puck when he is below
the face off circle in his own end. He can
hesitate at times to get fifty to fifty pucks. His
patience with the puck in ability to see teammates on
the breakout is above average. Defense. Willandra has a very
good active stick and good gap control. He boxes out
well in front of his own net, rarely loses his positioning,
not overly physical and more of a pusher board pinner
than a hitter. When he is beat, it's usually to
the outside on a rush. So the best asset was
patients with the buck, good passing, offensively strong positioning, and
stick without the puck. Biggest concern well Grant thinks that
offensive ceiling is going to be low, bad news for fantasy.
Most of his assists or secondary and goals are from
the point. The top tier outcome could be a top
four defender power play two thirty to forty points, fifty
to sixty hits, one hundred blocks. That's because he seemed
to play a cautious game in his first year at Boston.
You there could be a little more in the skill
set to bring out in year two to get to
that height. The fiftieth percentile of the median outcome bottom
pairing defender fifteen to seventeen minutes a game fifteen to
twenty five points. Nil's lunk vist type production. That's because
he needs to add elements to his game that he
didn't show consistently in college. After one year. If he
develops his game as it is, this might be his
ceiling and the NHL ranking. Mason Black puts out the
poll Tom Willander versus Adam Eircheck, and Willander comes out
firmly in control here sixty six to thirty four Victor.
Is that the same way you rank them?
Speaker 3: No, not even close. I don't know why people are
so obsessed with Valander. Maybe this is a Vancouver Canucks
filling the votes. But I think Lelander is going to
be an awesome real life defenseman. I don't really think
he's going to be that exciting in fantasy and Adam
Yirchek the year Checks are my boys. Everyone knows that
I love what they bring. I love the Bash, the
all around physicality, and they have some good offensive acumen
and other aspects as well. I think your Check is
going to be great. There is, of course, some questions,
especially for him. We lost a lot of his draft
season that we didn't get to see. Unfortunately, just like
his brother, he had a knee injury at the World
Championships and he wasn't great before that in his play
in check Ya with the men's team, so we don't
really know. Unfortunately, we thought that we were maybe going
to get to see him at the U eighteens like
we did with Aaron kV are you, but we were
not able to see that. So we don't really know
what to expect from Adam Rochek, But I do think
based on his draft minus one season and what his
brother is accomplished, I think the upside is pretty significant
for him and the Bash should be high, and there's
dis points upside. Looking at the pnch League between the two,
we don't really have one for year Check. Bevelander is
at sixty one based on his NCAA performers, but I
just don't think he really gets there when the context
changes for him. We'll have to see about that. He
is getting Cole Hudson now at BU, so maybe he'll
go from Hudson Hudson. We'll have to see about that.
For Vilander, assuming he's back at BU, he might he's
actually eligible because he was drafted Euro he could go
to the AHL, which might be a better place for
him anyways. Looking at the hockey prospecting between these two,
both have pretty low equivalency. Lander just at five percent
and you're to check two percent and Velander fifty six
percent chance of being an NHLer and you're a check fifteen.
Neither have super high equivalency here. Looking at some other
realistic comps for Verlander, I think Mark Edward Lassik is
a pretty realistic one. Never really did too much in
terms of points in the NHL, but was a really
good real life defenseman for the team, and I think
that's going to be true for Verlander. Someone who will
help the Canucks, will help the goalies, but not necessarily
help you in fantasy. The j Fresh card for Lander
two percent chance of being a star, fifteen percent chance
of being an NHLer. I think that's a little bit realistic. Unfortunately,
except the NHLer part, I think that's pretty pretty realistic.
Speaker 4: All right, Victor, who's to keep your eye on prospect?
Speaker 3: Keep your eye is Atu Ratu. That is a twenty
twenty one second round pick, sixty two hundred and eighty
seven pound left shot center. After a strong season in
the Liga in twenty twenty one to twenty two forty
points in forty one games, he came to North America
in twenty twenty two twenty three and split time between
the Islanders and the Canucks HL system. Last season, he
put up fifty two points in seventy two HL games,
which was fantastic. His FHL player card shows that he
actually hits quite a bit eight eightieth percentile for hits
for sixty his hits. His shots and blocks though, are
pretty low, just in the twentieth and thirtieth percentile, So
overall his bash looks like it might be low save
for the hits, and his assists were pretty good at
eightieth percentile. The rest of his numbers were average, So
there's potential here for some fantasy value, But I think
we need to learn a little bit more about the
player that Atu Ratu is from our FHL scout jesse.
Speaker 4: A to Ra Tou. His skating doesn't come naturally. He's
got a stiff stride, won't win many races for the puck.
Strong on his skates, has decent lateral movement with the puck.
Skating will be his biggest hurdle to sticking in the NHL.
Passing and handling, Rattu is very adapt at handling the
puck and tight. Is above average at receiving passes, slows
the play down when with the puck, and looks for
passing options. Shooting, Ratu is a nice wrist or snapshot
that he can drag on occasion and surprise goalies from
just inside the face off circles. He has a quick
release from in tight is above average at deflecting the
puck when in front of the net iq Ratu lacks
a little in the vision and anticipation departments, does the
scan when without the puck that often, and can miss
a passing lantern offense or lose a man on defense.
He has above average poise very low panic threshold, which
can work to his favor for checking. Strong on his feet,
good along the boards. He'll take a hit if it's there,
but not a basher by any means. He prefers to
stay out high and have his teammates do the four
checking defense well. Graham was expecting a little more defensively
from Raw two. At the AHL level, he played center
and wing, but his position at center can sometimes end
up with him out high. He can be defensively unaware
at times, which can cause him to react late. Doesn't
always translate to being good defensively. His struggles at center
in the AHL raised doubts about his ability to play
there in the NHL. So the best asset his ability
in the face off circle. Puck handling, good risk snapshot
are the best ass sets. He has the ability to
slow the game down when the puck comes to his pace.
At the AHL level, the biggest concern skating below average defense,
not at an NHL level. Not sure the skill set
is high enough without the defense to stick at the
higher level. Grant says, the best outcome you could hope
for from Raw two is the third line center winner
winger who wins some face off scores fifteen to twenty goals,
thirty five to forty five overall points in the NHL.
He's got the skill to put up that many points.
He's going to need to improve his defense to get
the opportunity. The median outcome an AHL player who gets
a few more cups of coffee at the NHL level
and heads back to the LIGA in a few years.
If he doesn't progress in the AHL this year, he's
just not going to get to the NHL, says Grant.
This season is very important to his future in North America.
The NHL ranking Mason Black put out the poll Atu
Ratu versus Zach LaRue, and Lararue of the Nashville Predators
wins this one fifty two to forty eight. Victor, boy,
I know you're not the biggest fan of that gentleman.
Speaker 3: What do you think which gentleman? LaRue or Ratu LaRue?
Speaker 4: I don't think you like Rawtu either, Victor, you hate everybody?
What's wrong with you?
Speaker 3: I don't hate many people, but no, I actually do
like LaRue. I just took him in our Diesel Drift,
the one the four sport league that you've put together.
I really like LaRue, especially based on his performance this season.
He really was fantastic in the HL. You're right, that
I have been skeptical of him in the past and
coming out of the queue and having a lot of
physicality to his game, which can be a good thing,
but I wasn't sure how much the points were. Then
he scored forty eight points in sixty six HL games
for your Milwaukee Admirals over there, and he went point
per game in the HL playoffs, with fifteen points in
fifteen games, ten of those being goals. So I'm starting
to come around, and I actually wanted someone really close
to nhlready, which is why I picked LaRue in that draft.
These are all a bunch of guys that are available
that were drafted previously, so anyways, I think I would
take LaRue here. I'm still a little skeptical on Ratu.
The foot speed remains an issue. I watched them tape
on him. He is someone who sees the play really well,
though I would say and guess to where he needs
to get based on his hockey IQ. But I still
think that there's some unlimited upside there in terms of
how much he could produce in the NHL level. Probably
more of a middle six, maybe forty to fifty point guy.
Not sure that's what his pnhle suggests right now, LaRue
already doing it a little bit more in the HL,
and Ratu has had some decent HL production. As I mentioned,
he's in his third AHL season basically now or coming
up on his third, and so it's a little less
exciting when you do that in your subsequent season, unlike LaRue.
So I have a little bit more excitement for Lou
at this point. Looking at the hockey prospecting between the two,
it's actually pretty pessimistic for both. Although LaRue started at
twenty three percent chances of being a star, he's regressed
down to just one percent. I think that's much higher actually,
and Ratu has been basically zero percent this entire time,
which is I think he has more upside than that.
The NHLer probability also goes to LaRue at fifty eight
to thirty eight. I think both these guys have pretty
realistic shot to play NHL games. So trying to find
some comfer Ratu that looks decent with this low percentage,
and the only one that really looks close as Mason mccavish,
who wasn't at zero percent, but he was at seven seven,
six and then eight percent when he graduated the model,
but obviously he is an NHLer. But the thing that
really messed it up in Byron's calculations is missing that
entire twenty twenty one season in the OHL, so that
I think messed up the equivalencies. But anyways, mctel rattu
three percent chance of being a star seventy one percent
chance of being an NHL are based on the Jfresh card,
so as usual, a little bit more pessimistic there. And
that's it for the Vancouver Canucks dig. If you want
to listen to my top ten prospects recap, you can
hear that on Patreon. And if you're going to do
some scouting with us, shoot me a dam on Twitter,
Discord or email.
Speaker 4: Us ato ra to la. Rue your boat gently down
the stream and we'll be right back to close.
Speaker 2: Out this show.
Speaker 4: Closing it out today a reminder, our show is brought
to you by fan Tracks. You can move leagues there,
start new leagues, ten different sports to play, most options
for scoring salaries, contracts, customizing rookie eligibility, starting up your
leagues the day after the season ends. Anything you can
think of. I've been stretching thinking about doing one of
those best ball leagues. We'll just see how excited I
get about that. Fan tracks HQ has lots of fantasy content.
There's articles on fantasy hockey and all the other fantasy sports.
We've got a team that we'd like to thank content.
We've got Ryan Simone, Kraftzer and Tim the commission team
with the growing Tidy Leagues. Jeremy v and Tony are
our co lead scouts. Brandon is a website guru as
well as a scout and is helping with prospect ranks
and visualizations like the FHL player cards. If you have
skills you'd like to lend the show, hit Victor up
in the Discord email or on x also brought to
you by Daber Hockey and Dabber Prospects. Victors and editor
there follow us work there as well as this other podcast,
Daber Prospects Report with Peter Harling. Be sure to check
out Victor's articles at EP Ringside, where he's part of
the fantasy team with Cam Robinson and Mike Clifford. I
do a solo show, Dynasty Sports Life. I talk all
the Dynasty sports this week. You can look for some
NBA previews, post free agencies, some guys whose dynasty value
will change. Follow us on x at fan Hockey Life
at Victor Nuno twelve, Rate and review us on Apple Pods, Spotify,
wherever else you get pods. We appreciate five stars as
we get ourselves through these last couple of team previews.
Vancouver Canucks are helping you live this fantasy hockey life.