Thomas Drance on the Canucks gritty win in St. Louis, Kiefer Sherwood and more

Thomas Drance on the Canucks gritty win in St. Louis, Kiefer Sherwood and more

Donnie and Dolly. The team is supported by abblections.ca. Closing your business. We can help. Happy Halloween. It’s Friday. Donnie Dolly, the team on check. All of our guests today are brought to you by our title sponsor, Able Auctions and Able Auctions.ca. This is a great tweet I just got from Gourd. Wait and see. They didn’t wait and see with Drew O’ Conor or Marcus Person. Oh, in terms of resigning Kefir Sherwood you’re saying the Canucks are talking about still, you know, wait and see. Wait and see. They don’t want to resign him. Huh? They traded for two guys. They I had a history, but they traded for two guys and they signed them immediately. So, that’s a great tweet. Uh, now no, I got a text or tweet. It was a tweet. Okay. You’re going to tell me Mr. Technology over there. And by the way, you are getting beat up after what you said in the first uh about not handing out candy. The amount of kids that come for candy now is down 60% from where these I’ve read that from the 80s9s. The kids don’t go out anymore. They don’t go out anymore. Very few go out. Thomas Durant joining us now from the athletic and sports net 650. Thomas, happy Halloween, sir. How are you? Happy Halloween, gentlemen. Rick doesn’t hand out candy, but he always wants to hand out extensions to Canucks forward. Ah, stop it, Thomas. Plus percent. Always. That’s what he That’s what he hands out. Are you Are you on the wait and see uh you’re on the wait and see movement then, Thomas, with when it comes to Kewood? What’s the logic of paying him now that he’s the leading NHL goal scorer? I mean, you know, you know, it would be one thing to have done it or tried to do it before the season, before this unholy heater that this guy is on. Uh because, you know, then then maybe it would have been closer to his market value. I mean, he’s reset his market, hasn’t he, Rick? Yeah. Okay. But they’re kind of stuck. Do you want the NHL’s leading goal scorer to walk or do you want to keep him? Don’t you want to keep him? I I I would love to keep him. Kefir Sherwood absolutely rocks, but he’s also 30. Uh, this team has to be mindful of sort of where they’re going and where they’re trending, right? I I mean, you know, the the benefit of wait and see is in two, three months, you have a better sense of, hey, what’s our team? I mean, we don’t know what this team is right now. We’ve only seen them play what, four or five games with anything even approximating a a relatively stocked full NHL lineup. um you know, if you’re way out of the of the mix uh come January, right, and and you’re looking at sort of different priorities in terms of the long-term direction of this team, you know, then that’s going to necessitate one thing. Uh if you’re, you know, you get healthy and you’re competing and and you’re close and Keeper Sherwood has 15 goals and and has maybe added an assist or two and is still throwing four hits a game, um you know, that might necessitate something different. So, you know, for me anyway, wait and see is the only wise course of action here. And that’s not to say that they shouldn’t extend him or that they should trade him. I don’t think we need to have that conversation yet. You’ve got time. Use it. Uh the time to sign him, in my view anyway, if you were going to like if you were intent on getting him done, you know that the time to get it done was before the season. Now that he’s on this unholy heater, you know, you’re paying for a guy who shot 37% through the first 11 games of the year. I mean, that’s something that I’d be reluctant to do if I were the Canucks, too. So, for me anyway, wait and see is just prudent, and that’s not to sort of put my finger on the scale either way. That’s just how you sort of have to time it out given where you find yourself. Is it fair to say, though, Thomas, with how valuable he seemingly is with the full package of the hitting and the the point production so far, the deadline is the trade? Yeah. Well, yeah, but the deadline is the trade deadline. like either he’s got to sign or he’s got to go because of the value in that player. Like they they can’t go past the trade deadline without an extension, right? No, I I mean I think you can go past the trade deadline without an extension if you’re clearly in a playoff spot. And not just like last year where it was like, “Oh, we’re hanging on. We’re hanging on like with Pew Sudter or what have you.” I mean, I think if you’re clearly a playoff team and you’re trending to be a playoff team and you’re playing good hockey, then that, you know, is is fine to to hang on beyond the beyond the deadline for me anyway. Um, but yeah, I mean, if you’re well out of the playoff picture, I think that necessitates a different course of action. I mean, you know, it was a it was a big win yesterday. We don’t have to do the big get. The Canucks have held the fort and hung on. So I I mean let’s sort of see where this season goes and and see where we land before we get into like making a determination does you know four years from now a 34y old Kefir sure would help you more than the second round draft pick or what have you that you could get back for him? You know that’s a that’s a January conversation gentleman for me anyway. All right what about that uh character win last night Thomas? Eight players hurt and then Besser gets hurt 33 seconds in and you know they had Unbelievable. Unbelievable. They had a million excuses to fold their tent and say no. But in adversity is when you find character and and these guys, you know, for the rest of the way found a way to win last night. Yeah. And and I mean Lankin was huge, right? He he lets in that sort of first goal which had a bit of an odor on it. Uh which, you know, I think for a lot of Canucks fans given the I don’t think Lankin has been as bad as his numbers, by the way, gentlemen. I just don’t think he’d made those incredible saves in his first four starts leading into last night. Then he allows that sort of one that he’d probably want back in the first period to open the scoring for St. Louis. And from that point on, I mean, he was phenomenal. You know, uh, sure, character win. I mean, they didn’t pull the tent. They worked hard. Uh, credit to them. The the truth is is you could play that game 10 times over and the Conucks lose it nine times, right? I mean, the Blues were wildly dominant throughout that game. I mean, probably outchanced them four to one in terms of the really high quality uh chances, outshot them better than two to one and really seem to be on the verge of absolutely taking over in that third period. You know, the Canucks get a bounce on that first Sherwood goal. They get a bounce on the third Sh. Then they get unlucky to not win it in regulation on that very iffy goalender interference call. On the goender interference call, gentlemen, by the way, can we just talk about this? Look at Bennington. Yeah. Does that look like a goalie who was interfered with? Yeah. Does that look like a goalie who thinks he was interfered with? It does not. It does not. Bennington. Bennington. We know how demonstrative this guy is. If the goalie doesn’t react, you know, that’s how you know. That’s how you know that goal should have stood. When the goalie himself is like, “Yeah, that was an unfortunate goal that I allowed.” That’s completely fair. Anyway, um so they end up getting unlucky to not win it in regulation, but they had some bounces along the way and they had a sterling goalending performance and certainly you give credit to them for just sort of digging deep and sticking with it. Uh uh you’re right, they had a million excuses to lose on form. They played a game they probably didn’t deserve to win, but you know what? There are no style points awarded when you’re missing eight guys from your lineup and then lose another guy because he gets hit in the family jewels on the first shift of the game. Uh that’s just to tip your cap. Those are the sorts of wins that you kind of need when your back is up against the wall over the course of a long NHL season. Um you know, just to just to hold the fort, just to give yourself a chance when when you get healthier um to determine your own fate as opposed to have it having it determined for you by bad injury level. Uh how long can they hold the fort? Uh, in terms of no second line center, the trade market is telling us there’s a ton of teams looking for the exact same thing that the Vancouver Conucks are or second line center. Um, Carolina, Montreal, Toronto, keep going down the list. There’s a ton of teams looking for the same thing. It’s going to be tough. If they get a second line center today, they’re going to massively overpay. Like, I mean, what what are you hearing on the market? What’s going on with these guys? Well, it’s going to be tough. And and let’s be real, gentlemen, right? I mean, Montreal, you know, they might look at themselves if if a a second line center, let’s just take a name that’s been rumored across the last week, although with the Elias Lindhome update, perhaps we should pour cold water on it now. Yeah. But like Pavle Zaka’s name, right? If you’re Montreal, and granted, it’s probably harder for them to make a trade with an ancient rival within their division, but you know, if you’re Montreal, what’s the marginal benefit that Zaka can bring to your lineup, right? It might be the difference between being a solid playoff team and like a legit contender, right? I don’t think the Canucks are a Pavl Zacko away from being an elite contender. Do you? Right. Like they’re not. They need a guy like Pavle Zaka to be the playoff team that they want to be. Well, the the the gap there, right? The the the marginal value of going from being a solid playoff team to being potentially a contender is worth paying through the nose for, right? the marginal value of being yeah maybe not a playoff team to oh yeah I I’m more confident in that team being a playoff team like that’s relatively small and that justifies a smaller expense too. uh even with the Hughes factor looming like you mentioned a lot of teams in there that have realistic Stanley Cup aspirations and are looking for the same thing that the Conucks are and the truth is is that they’re going to be motivated by the simple you know laws of economics to to pay at a level that you know it’s hard to see the Conucks matching and that’s part of the issue here too. As high leverage as this season is for the Canucks, the leverage of making that addition isn’t going to be as high as it is for a Carolina as it is for for a Montreal. And that’s going to make it difficult to win the bidding as well. Uh we’ll see what the Canucks can sort of pull out of out of a hat in in terms of trying to find a rabbit, a a rabbit who happens to be a middle six center in this case, but it’s definitely going to be gruesome and sort of the logic of this uh just just the economic behavioral logic of which teams are going to be most willing to overpay uh you know complicates this further. Uh Thomas, last night Tom Vander, second NHL game for him. 19 minutes of ice time. What have you seen uh from a guy that some people think might be part of a Canucks trade package? Yeah, I mean I thought it was a much better performance than his debut. Um you know that the Canucks were in zone a lot last night, right? I mean they spent a lot of time in zone. That’s a tough spot for a young player playing his second NHL game to be put in. Uh and I thought he held up pretty well. You know, I think that’s the part of the game where he’s at his best to be totally honest with you. He’s got a really high work rate. He’s really fast. He’s really conscientious in terms of the defensive side of the puck uh or the defensive side of the game. And I thought that all showed uh in the game last night. You know, I I I almost think that game script lends itself better to his skills than one in which the Conucks are, for example, chasing a lead the way they were against the New York Rangers. Like a narrow, you know, down by one, every mistake matters. That’s where some of his offensive decision-making, like some of the pinches that we saw in that New York Rangers game, uh, becomes something that like I’m a little less confident in in terms of his processing at this point early in his NHL career. But the defensive side of the game, he’s already really polished at, really conscientious at, really mature at, and I thought that showed through in that game last night. Do you have a favorite Halloween candy? Um, oh man, I love all Halloween candy. I think at the end of the day, you know those little tin foil wrapped Reese’s pieces? Yeah. Yeah. They’re they’re better than the normalsized Reese’s pieces. They’re like deeper and they’re smaller. I those to me are just like absolutely by far the number one thing you want. And then obviously, do you remember Do you remember back in the day you knew every house in your neighborhood that would give out the bigger candies? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The rich the dentist house. Yeah. Yeah. And then you skip the dentist in the neighborhood’s house cuz they were giving out toothbrushes. Yes. Yes. Um, good times. Good times. It’s too bad that 60% of children aren’t uh aren’t going out anymore. Hey, by the way, Ryan, you’re you’re you’re blasting Rick for for his uh like technological boomerism and then calling them tweets. Are they still called tweets? Well, what what are they though? Posts? I think they’re X’s or something. I don’t know. They’re not exes. Stop it. Come on. Stop it. Everybody loves their exes. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for doing this, Thomas. Happy Halloween. We’ll talk to you next Friday. Thanks, boys. Happy.

Thomas Drance from The Athletic and Sportsnet 650 joined the guys and recapped the Canucks win last night in St. Louis and more.