A deep dive on Elias Pettersson’s game + Canucks practice | Canucks Conversation

A deep dive on Elias Pettersson’s game + Canucks practice | Canucks Conversation

[Music] Where’s the They kept the wrong guy. Where’s that crew today? Harm, where’s that crew today? We going to see him in the chat today? We’re going to see any of them? No, not today. Not today. And I’ll tell you why. And anyone else? Hello, Kucks fans. My name is Dave Gelli. Thanks so much for joining us on another episode of Kucks Conversation brought to you by Bet 365. We are coming to you from the Pacific Toyota dealer studios. Visit shoptoyota.ca or visit your local Pacific Toyota dealer today. Harmonial joins me. Our technical producer is Jacob Lazar. Jacob, I’ll ask you right off top because I think we’ve been asking at the end of episodes. How are we doing on Family Food Surveys? We’re supposed to play tomorrow. We are going to play tomorrow and I’m just pulling up the forum. We are at 89 responses. We need 11 more. So, I’m assuming those watching on YouTube or Facebook right now or or even Twitter, I guess we’ll probably get that out. So, if you’re on the audio pod, we are good. Hopefully, you filled it out already. Love it. All right, we got a few things to get to today. Kucks practice. Let’s lead off with the notes from Kucks practice. Harm, uh, I tweeted out an injury update. We also had one posted on Kucks Army and then scenes from morning skate as well dropped. You and I were both there. I want to talk about the actual contents of practice because we were talking systems yesterday. I want to talk about that a little bit. But just right off the hop, let’s get the injury updates out of the way. Good news, Connor Garland is good to go. He was a full participant in practice and Foot said that he’s good to go. So, he’ll be there uh tomorrow when they play the Dallas Stars. Derek Forbert’s still going to be out for a while. Uh we don’t have he he had a setback. Like that that’s the easiest way to put it. He had a setback. It didn’t seem like it was going to be long-term at all when he originally went out. Uh, and he he’s had some setbacks. So, Forbert’s still going to be out a while. Uh, Hoglander, Nils Hoglander trending towards the 10 end of the original 8 to 10 week timeline that we got. And I think foot said that we’re in like seven and a half weeks. So, to me that means two and a half, three weeks. We’re going to see Neils Hoglander potentially. So, that’s something to keep an eye on. Uh, speaking of setbacks, Teddy Bluger also had a setback. So, he was, again, reminder, last week he was in a non-cont uniform, wasn’t at practice today. Uh, foot said he hopes to skate in a few days. So, we will see how that goes. No, no further updates on Heedel. Demco again, Patrick Alvidine gave updates on those players just a few days ago. So, some good news uh and some bad news for the Canucks on the injury front. Yeah, nothing really. The one I’m really excited for is Hoglander, right? We know Heedle and Demco, those are the mo most impactful players that are out out of lineup right now. But Hoglander stands out to me in the sense of just having another five on five driver in there and having another player that can play with speed, create controlled entries, and give this team a bit of a spark. You have another potential linemate for Leas Patterson to play with. Uh I’m itching to see Hoglander. So, I anticipated just because we haven’t seen him practice that it would still be some time before he’s ready. So, maybe some point in in December is a more realistic timeline for his return. But that’s the one I’m most excited for. Obviously, in the interm, the penalty kill is probably a loser in all this to know that Forbert and Bler don’t really sound particularly uh close. And then obviously to have Garland back uh as a full participant. He’s going to be good to go tomorrow against Dallas. That’s massive. Just as far as having another um another player in your top six that is actually a legit top six caliber producer, creator, and he skated on a line separate from Leas Patterson, which I think helps your middle six be more dynamic to to create more. and uh we’ll we’ll see how that uh ultimately plays out. There’s so much around the league happening right now that people are flooding the chat with stuff from around the league, which I understand there’s a lot to get to. Today is going to be a long anyone else segment. So, let’s get to the person deep dive in a second here. Hm. Before we do that and before we talk about the contents of Kucks practice, that’s the next thing I want to talk about. I want to introduce a new sponsor. Very happy, very proud to be sponsored with them. Movember. This segment is a presentation of Movember. Movember is the leading charity dedicated to changing the face of men’s health because healthier men mean a healthier world. This is the 19th annual campaign for Movember in Canada, raising funds and awareness for men’s health across the country. Since 2003, over 6 million people have raised funds for Movember. In 2024, over 47,000 Canadians participated, and the movement continues to grow. Donate at movevember.com today and be a part of changing the face of men’s health in Canada. Always happy to support uh Movember. Great, great organization. Happy really happy to have them. Look at this hat they sent me. Really happy to have them uh as a partner. Welcome to the Kronox Combo family. For the rest of the month, you should grow out that stash quads. Welcome to Movember. Uh no, I’m I’m not doing that. Remember last year I did that and it was like we had we had a long was it a long weekend? I think it might have been the remembrance day long weekend where I had four days to grow the mustache and you could tell a dramatic difference from like Friday to Tuesday or whenever we did the show and everyone in the chat was was giving me the giving me uh crap for it. So I ain’t doing that again. I’m not I’m not doing that again. That was that was so bad. Like I need to shave right now. Um, great. You got a head start. No, no shaving until December 1st, dude. Bully him. Bully him. Hey, hey, you want to see what’s in the chat right now? Bro Shinobi. Uh, oh, wait, no, not that one. Where’d it go? Yeah. Walk. If the Canucks make the playoffs, harm does a charity beard shave? What do you think about that harm? I don’t know about that. the the beard is one of the only things that I there’s it would probably take a stupid amount of money for me to to shave it. Did you uh did you grow your did you grow your as I said oh we got a lot to get to. We got to stay on track. Did you grow your mustache over over COVID like when you were wearing a mask all the time or sorry not your beard. Is that when you did it? Okay. That’s when my brother did it, too. Cuz my brother and I Last time you were clean shaven, harm uh the before the pandemic. Wow. See, that’s the thing. If I could wear a mask everywhere and not have to really leave my house or whatever, I’d be okay cuz I my brother and I both, we can grow our facial hair, but it’s takes a while. And there’s a really awkward phase. And I’m on camera every day. Maybe over the offseason. Maybe over the offseason I’ll get a beard going, but we’re still I don’t believe that you can grow a full beard. No, no, I don’t. It grows right here. And for those on the podcast, I’m pointing to like the chin strap. Like I get nothing here. I got nothing here. Anyways, uh yeah, people want me to put on a fake must. Stop it. I’m not hosting feud again. I’m not doing that again. All right, let’s get into it. Sorry. Urvin Aquino in the chat. Is quads of legal age to grow a stash? I like still getting these comments once in a while about people saying I look young. They’re they’re fewer and far between as I get older, which I yeah, I don’t know how I feel about that. But anyways, uh let’s go. Let’s get to Canucks practice. Hart, we were talking about systems again. They gave up way way too many goals, way too many goals in Florida and really on that road trip. Just too many chances and a big emphasis on defending. Uh Adam Foot stopped practice a couple times to uh share some thoughts with the group. There was one point where he blew the whistle and said, “We need to effing defend hard.” And hey, preach, brother. Preach. Like he’s he’s bang on. They need to defend hard. Uh a big emphasis on netfront stuff like getting under sticks instead of over top and letting the letting the forward in front of the net kind of have free reign of where he wants to go with deflecting the puck. So uh a big focus on defense. It didn’t quite feel like uh Rick Tockett’s first week of practices upon being hired where he was like, “No, no, this is where it looked like we we made fun of them quite a bit. We said like this looks like an Adam practice. This looks like children learning how to defend for the first time. It wasn’t quite at that level, but definitely a big emphasis on coaching today. Yeah. And it’s understandable because this compressed schedule has limited the number of practices that the Canucks have been able to h have, especially because they’ve had a roadheavy schedule to begin the campaign. And if you’re a new head coach, as Adam Foot is, and you’re trying to change the way this team plays, it’s not ideal to have such little practice time available to you, and it it makes it difficult. It it feels like the games even pass by so quickly. So, if you have a couple of rough outings defensively, you don’t have much time to really reflect, to process that, to go over some of that tape with your players and to really implement that into the next game because there’s such a quick turnaround between your last game and your next one. This is where to have a couple days off before Thursday’s game is a really important reset, especially against a Stars team that has been red-hot recently. They had a stretch at five on five where they were really struggling to generate five on five offense. They had Matthew Shane out of the lineup. They had rope hits out of the lineup. They just look slow as a team. They’re still not I’d say at the elite offensive level we’re accustomed to seeing them click at. But these are still the Dallas Stars. It’s going to be a tough test and I’m curious to see how many of the weekend errors they can start to clean up. A guy like David Camp who’s going to play high leverage defensive minutes for them on the peak at and at five and five. This is his first practice. And we saw against Florida, there were a number of instances where he was running out of position and you could tell, all right, this is a player that is playing his first NHL game since May 2024 or whatever it was when he last suited up for the Leafs. It’s been a while. And so, you hope that he’s more comfortable in those minutes and can help steady the ship defensively. Um, plus you hope just having a couple days off can help refresh some of your veteran defensemen like Myers and Marcus Patterson who have taken on a significant workload and who have struggled over the last uh few weeks. Everyone’s dealing with a condensed schedule, but it is going to be really nice for this Conucks team to just have a chance to breathe again. They’re at home like it it it is a good chance for them to just, you know, reset a little bit. But again, they play tomorrow, then they play Sunday, and then they have another few days off before their next game, uh, Wednesday against the Anaheim Ducks. So, that’s going to be really nice. That’s going to be really, really nice for them to kind of just be at home, few days off at home. I was looking at the Canucks, uh, media schedule that they provide for us. And I’m pretty sure I read that there’s like two or three off days this month. It’s been It’s been crazy. It’s been really, really crazy. Like true I’m talking true days off where like there’s no practice. there’s nothing for the players to do. You just stay away from the rink and you you just get a chance to reset. They’ve only had like two of those. So, uh good good chance for them. And hey, uh for all the talk about a practice facility, all of their practices have been at Rogers Arena so far. Am I right about that? I don’t think they’ve been at UBC yet this year. I think so, but I can’t remember September and early October. I think they’re probably going to have to do UBC at some point next week. I think the reason they haven’t had to use UBC is because the practices are so few and far between. There’s only been like two at home, right? Um they’ve used other teams practice facilities for practice, but there’s been so few practices at home uh that it hasn’t really hasn’t really been an issue this year. But anyways, we’re not going to rehash practice facility stuff. We know practice facilities are used for more than just the sheet of ice and practicing, but we’re not going to rehash that right now. Anything else you want to say about today’s practice? Yuri Peter’s uh black skate setup looks dynamite. Love it. I wasn’t keeping that close of an eye on it. Can you What did you like about it? It’s black. I liked uh I like Oh, thanks. I I couldn’t have guessed that it was black. The mask has the um the black skate logo. It’s pretty generic, I guess. I don’t know. I just like it. I think it’s cool that Yuri Peter has a black skate setup. Yeah. I probably never would have guessed that when he was realized at the start of training camp that he was the fifth goalender on the depth chart or something. Who’s the uh who who’s the cuto off where you don’t get the call from the equipment staff cuz cuz we’ve heard this story that hey we have uh we have a black black skate jersey. You need another setup or you need another set of gear because they tell they tell guys that when they get traded or when they sign all that sort of stuff. I always tell the goalies that who’s the cut off like is Jonathan Lemieux getting that call? Like Tai Young must have a black skate setup somewhere, right? Like he must just have it waiting. I I was going to say it was probably Tai Young. Like Young Patera are the last two guys to get it. I would think Tolo obviously has one. Yeah, Tolo definitely would. To had one for years. Yeah. Wonder if Lemieux Lemieux is the guy. Okay, we don’t need to talk about Jonathan Lemieux’s black skate setup. I mean, I I will say though I talking about the existence of it. Does it exist? But what I will say is I was going through for a a different reason looking back at the first time they wore these black skate jerseys. You know who started a net for that game with a full black skate setup was Colin Delia. Yes. And then I think Spencer Martin started the next game and they both had black skate gear. Now, at the time, obviously, they were both in the NHL, but there you go. If you Those names are bringing back bad memories. Hey, speaking of Colin Delia, do you want to talk about JT Miller right now, or should we save it? You want to save? Let’s save it. Let’s save it. Okay. Uh, all right. Nothing else from practice. Nope. Then let’s do it. You’ve been itching for this one, harm. It is the Alias Patterson deep dive, and it is brought to you by our friends at Greta. A great spot for all games home and away. You can skip the line and not have to pay cover on game night dates if you’re wearing the home team’s gear. And of course, there’s also the game day specials at Greta, including 333 off select food items, 333 for select drinks, and more with the arcade bar and street food menu. Make ready your spot for the next game. 5 Cordova Street is the address. Let the games begin. Take it away, harm. Yeah, I just wanted to have a bigger sort of zoomed out conversation on where Patterson’s game is at at the quarter mark of the season and this whole conversation of how back is he. There are so many different observations and angles that we can take this from. There are about five or six things that that I want to talk about, but the first one that I want to make a note of is just how impressed I’ve been by his givealeep meter this year. I really feel with the way that he’s laying his body out on the line, sometimes even recklessly where you want him to maybe be a little bit more careful to block shots. Yeah. Uh battling down low defensively, just his overall effort level away from the puck especially has been phenomenal. It’s been first class. And it’s not to say that he wasn’t trying or or didn’t care last year, but this is a different level of urgency, desperation, and care level to his game. And I think that’s really important to earn the respect of your teammates in that locker room. I bet you when you’re an 11.6 $6 million player and you’re going through the offensive struggles that he was last year. It’s one thing if you’re struggling offensively and then your work rate is is fine, but it’s nothing exceptional, right? Let’s let’s not forget that at times last year the whether it was Rick Tocket or Patrick Alvine, we were still talking about practice habits and stepping up as a leader and bringing it not just on the ice but away from the rink. We were having these conversations where at times where we’re going, are we talking about a veteran here or are we talking about a 19, 20-year-old that’s learning his way through the league? Compare the level of respect that probably garners in the dressing room. Whereas when you see Patterson this year, the the way that he’s sacrificing defensively, especially when you’re when you’ve built your career on being more an offensive uh presence and and an elite producer that way to care that much away from the puck, that earns a respect of your teammates and it matters moving forward because now even if Person has stretches where where the points don’t come, Again, there’s going to be a different level of respect that his teammates have that, hey, this guy, maybe he’s not living up, maybe he’s not always living up to his massive cap hit production-wise, but he’s given his 110% every night. He’s leading by example. And when you think about the future direction of this Conucks, and we don’t know whether Quinn Hughes is going to stay longterm or not, we don’t know whether this team is still going to be in a win now window or whether they’re going to transition to a retool or rebuild. If it ends up being some kind of retool or rebuild, you want the players that are still on your team, the veterans to be guys that the young players can learn from to be positive role ro role models and examples. And I think that’s the first thing that Patterson deserves credit for is he’s really leveled up the urgency, the desperation, and just the overall professionalism of his game. Yeah. And you know what? I brought this point up to you the other day where I was just like I don’t really understand people like well you can’t rebuild if you have Elias Patterson and I know that’s not where you’re trying to take the conversation and we’re not going to go too far down that road but it’s like the Patterson that’s given a bleep right now the way he is and I I don’t even want to say do you agree with me that the practice habit stuff and the give a bleep was maybe a little bit overblown in recent years perhaps I Clearly, whether whether you believe it or not, last year the organization clearly wasn’t happy with his commitment level. Yeah. Now, as a fan or as a media member, the you may not fully agree with the organization’s angle and their perception of it, but the fact remains there there was so much extensive reporting about how clearly the organization felt that part of the reason he struggled last year was because they felt that he didn’t prepare properly the previous summer. And when it becomes a talking point, you have your organizational leaders, Patrick Alvine, you have Rick Tocket consistently speaking on these things. It’s just not a good look. Yep. That’s fair. That’s very fair. Okay, continue. Uh and okay, so we we’ve got that element. That’s a that’s a definite positive. I’d say from an offensive standpoint recently we’ve seen in the stretch where he’s had four multi-point games in a row that he’s decisively finishing plays off the rush and not necessarily off of sequences where he’s walting through the neutral zone with a ton of speed pushing defenders on on their heels and doing it all by himself. But for instance, you look at the the two goals he scored against the Florida Panthers off the rush, finishing a chance like that on on the first one where Vander Kane makes a pass across to him, the backhand goal as well, but then also the short-handed snipe uh against the Carolina Hurricanes. Those are just the those are the flashes of the decisive finishing that I think will give him more confidence as a shooter as a finisher. I it’s it’s massive. And then even just the assertiveness to against Tampa, the assist he had on Jake De Brusk’s goal, the move to take Yanni Gordon one-on-one. I think he’s trusting his stick handling more too to try and beat guys one-on-one. Whereas it felt like last year he was slow, he was awkward, clunky, trying to deak around players. There were countless examples last year of he’s trying to beat a player one-on-one, whether it’s along the boards in the offensive zone or in the neutral zone, and it felt like it was happening at half speed and those attempted deaks were getting stripped were getting picked off really easily. I I can see it starting to form. Not saying it’s back to the level it was at his peak, but you’re seeing the sparks of it. Uh, and and that’s really encouraging. In terms of what I still want to see more of from him, it is interesting that at five on five, his individual shot shot rate is still very low. It’s he’s under four shots per hour at five on five, which is actually a lower rate than he was shooting the puck at five on five last year. and it’s about half of where it was at during his peak 102 point season. So, you still still want to see him find ways to attack more. Uh, but I’m also curious to see how much of that could shift now that his deployment could be freed up a little bit with David Camp uh taking on some of the more defensive zone starts. That’s a really interesting aspect of it all. And I mean, we’ve only seen one game. Did you actually have the numbers on that on how different it was in one game? Because I actually should have looked it up, but I didn’t. Did you see how many DZone starts he had compared to even just the game before? I can I can look it up right now. I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head. Uh go for it while I read some things from the chat. Uh yeah, we’ve got a few things in here. Uh lot about JT Miller. Obviously, when you bring up Leo Patterson, naturally these two players are going to be linked really, I don’t know if I should say for the rest of their careers, but certainly this season, even Rangers fans, you see them on Twitter right now saying, “We traded for the wrong guy.” Um, yeah, it’s it’s an interesting conversation to have about Elas Patterson because he’s done so many things right away from the puck. I think the interesting thing about Person that people notice at the start of the year was I don’t want to call him snake bitten but certainly he was doing good things at the start of the year as well. The point production is now just starting to follow. Do you agree with me? Maybe a little bit snake bitten for Leius Buterson. Yeah, likely. And maybe not even him but just his line as a whole. they the rate at which they’re generating expected goals for has seen a significant uptick compared to last year and for a long while there was a discrepancy where where Person’s line’s actual goals for rate was trailing his expected rate and usually that’s a sign that all right you’re creating looks you’re you’re generating chances as a line but pucks aren’t going in and you’re more likely to if you continue produ producing shots and chances like this to get more of those results as the season goes along. And absolutely, I think we’ve seen some of that positive regression lately. Uh did you have those faceoff numbers now? Yeah. So, seven Dzone starts against the Florida Panthers. David Camp also had um had seven. So, I literally know that’s lower. That’s certainly lower. Didn’t he have 13 the game before? Yeah, I’m pulling up the Tampa numbers right now. at 15. Okay. Actually, no, sorry. It was those are defensive zone faceoffs. Defensive zone starts were eight. So, not really a huge difference yet, but I but I imagine as Cam gets more reps in and once he proves to the coaching staff that, hey, you could trust me. Yeah, that’s going to be a big um big variable in this as well is if David Camp takes a while to shake off the rust, then you’re not going to want to throw him to the Wolves right uh out of the gate. Anything else on Person that you wanted to get in there? Yes, a couple couple more things. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past referencing the NHL edge data for both his skating speed and his shot velocity. And I think this is the perfect encapsulation of how I describe Person compared to last year and compared to where he’s at where he was at in that 102 point season, which is he’s halfway back with the potential to as he up get closer and closer to being the elite differencemaker. He’s been at his best. uh where last year you would look at him and say he’s more more performing at the level of a second line center. Whereas now looking at the point production and and especially in context of the matchups he’s faced, you’re you’re looking at him as all right, he’s performing like a firstline center. Maybe more lowend than highend, but it’s a notable improvement compared to last year. And so with the speed bursts and and shot velocity, starting with the speed bursts, last year he was basically right around league average in terms of how many times he was skating faster than 20 mph. This year he’s in the 71st percentile, which is a nice improvement. Now, at his best, he was at the 89th percentile, so he’s not all the way back, but a step in the right direction for sure. And then with the shot velocity as well. Last year he only had 25 shot attempts all season long that eclipsed 80 miles per hour. This year he’s already at 11. And so we know it’s no November 19th and he’s almost at halfway the number of shots above 80 miles per hour that he had for all of last season. So that’s a step in the right direction. But again, when he was at his best, you look at some of the stuff, and this is a reminder that, all right, he’s not all the way back yet. In the 2022 23 season, he had 110 shot attempts that were clocked at 80 miles per hour or faster. 110. Now, part of that is he was shooting puck a lot more then, but even on a percentage basis, it was 53% of his shots were at that at that velocity, whereas he’s still at about 33% there. So, still room to come back, but you’re starting to see some of the physical attributes uh return to return to form. You should ask him about it, about his NHL data. Oh, wait. probably closer to the middle of the season. Um the last thing that I think we should talk about and and this is really the not a negative but an area where I look at as all right he’s got there’s still more juice left for for him to give. I’d say his two-way play driving metrics probably aren’t as high caliber as you’d like them to be. Right. So this year with Person on the ice, Conucks have controlled about 44% of shot attempts and 46% of scoring chances. So they’ve been outshot and out chance by fairly wide margins and it’s that impact has been felt on the scoreboard too. The last 11 games they’ve actually been outscored despite his recent point production. They’ve been outscored 9 to4 during Patterson’s five and five shifts. And I understand the natural push back is going to be well look at all the all the Dzone starts. look at all the all the matchups. But I I don’t think that alone can explain how much he’s been caved in. Like even if you look at there are 332 forwards in the NHL this year who’ve played at least 155 and five minutes. Person’s on ice shot attempts against rate is the sixth worst among all NHL forwards and and his expected goals against rate is also very high. So they are giving up a lot of shots. they are giving up a lot of chances and again people will say oh the Dzone starts and and the tough matchups and that’s true to some extent but you look at male Bland in Calgary for example Backland has had more defensive zone starts than Elas Patterson this year he’s also had tougher defensive matchups than Person in terms of playing against the opposition’s top lines so this is a player statistically factually playing harder assignments in minutes than Leas Patterson and you look at Backland’s underlying numbers and it’s the flames teams are very are by very wide margins outshooting and out chancing their opponents and his defensive metrics are some of the best in the NHL. They’re near selky caliber. Uh and even like this whole conversation around the Dzone starts thing as well. I like there have actually been actual studies on this. They don’t suppress your analytics as much as you’d you’d expect because the majority of player shifts are on the fly. Yeah. Right. So Person’s had almost 400 five on five shifts this year. Only 68 of them have been defensive zone starts, which represents less than 20% actually less than 19% of his overall five on five shifts this year. He’s and he’s actually had more neutral zone starts than he has defensive zone starts. And even if you look at the discrepancy, he’s at 52 ozone starts and compared to 68 Dzone starts. So it’s not as if he’s at 80 Dzone starts and 10 ozone starts. Um, I think the overall point that I’m trying to make is he’s held up well defensively. He’s done an admirable job, but we’re not talking about Selki anywhere near Selki level results. And it feels like people have been talking like gassing him up as, oh, he’s taken on the tough minutes and he’s playing like a Selki centerman. He’s held up well. He’s holding his own, but there’s still room for him to really take over at five on five more decisively as a two-way play driver. And that’s where to help that process, I go back to what I mentioned on yesterday’s show that I’d like to see Adam Foot maximize the number of shifts Person and Quinn Hughes play at five and five together. Someone tweeted this at both of us. I think I think it was Sapster. Hold on, let me make sure I go find it. I got a lot of Twitter notifications right now because I uh tweeted out the injury update today. Let me sorry, let me scroll and find this. Yeah, here it is. Yeah. Uh Karm Basi in the Yeah, on Twitter tagged us in it and wanted us to dive on it. The fiveman unit of Evander Kane, Alias Patterson, Connor Garland with Hughes and Heronic. Uh 85.64 expected goals, four percentage, 79.17 scoring chance for percentage. Uh 86.67 67 high danger chance forward percentage. The sample size is tiny. Yeah. 1349 is so I I’d be careful about really putting stock into that. And I saw some people flaming foot that Oh, does that mean that the Hughes pair has barely played with the Pettison pair? It’s actually not that um not that bad at all. It’s been I I did I did the math looking at natural statric about 41% of Person’s five and five minutes have over overlapped with Quinn Hughes which is pretty normal. It’s not not looking that at looking at that as Adam Foot has not been playing them enough together. It’s I just want to see even more of it and and have that number be closer to the 50 maybe in 55% range the way you see the overlap between Conor McDavid and and Evan Bousard for instance because you look at the goal against Florida for example that Person had. It started with Quinn Hughes jumping up the ice, turning it into an odd man scenario, helping that line’s puck transportation, and then it’s Person that benefited finishing that play off. That that’s the other thing I’d say is Person is showing more flashes off the rush, but it’s what I mentioned at the start of the segment. It’s finishing plays off. It’s not the It’s not that he’s the one that’s speeding through the neutral zone and pushing defenders on their on their heels. It’s that he’s showing a great finishing ability when his line as a whole is is attacking and generating controlled entries. And when Quinn Hughes and Person are on the ice at the same time, that’s where Quinn’s explosiveness, carrying pucks up the ice and activating in transition, it makes Person’s finishing ability more dangerous. whereas when any other deep pair is on the ice, they don’t have that same level of dynamic transportation ability. And because outside of when Connor Garland is playing on that line, they don’t have a winger that can create a lot of controlled entries. It feels like in those situations, maybe Patterson’s line isn’t creating as much uh off uh off the rush. Had a question for you from Mike in the Valley. He said, “Harm, is there an easy way to compare matchups across players? I tried a natural stat trick and it’s very tedious.” So, you can look at hockey statcards.com. Uh they have a feature where if you go to their their skater section and then they have a usage players table. you can sort through players around the league and have a gauge of how difficult their uh quality of competition has been, the quality of teammates, and it also give you a bunch of data on Dzone starts, how many shifts on the fly. I I’d say that’s uh really useful. Normally, one of my favorites is also PA IQ, but PA IQ doesn’t update its data until about the halfway point of the season. So, if you go on P IQ right now and try searching up the their matchup data, you’ll get results for last year. There’s nothing for this season. So, uh hockey stats for now. Puck IQ is also a good alternative uh for the second half of the season once their database is updated. I also had a few people reach out to me yesterday. I plugged a book that was a good uh good thing about hockey systems that I read. It’s called The Hockey Playbook. It’s from 2005, The Hockey Playbook: Teaching Hockey Systems by Michael Smith. I found it on Amazon last night because a bunch of people asked me about it and I said I couldn’t remember the title. That’s the one I’m talking about. Big big book. Big paperback book. It’s a It’s a good one. It’s a good one. I uh I really enjoyed it. It was a good read. People should read it and people should uh people should read about uh hockey systems and there’s a lot out there. That’s obviously not the only one, but it it makes you it makes you understand the game more. It makes you smarter when talking about the sport. Well, it’s supposed to. hasn’t worked for me, but um you know when you have conversations with players and stuff, just knowing what when they use terminology, for example, you kind of know what they’re talking about and it’s it’s helpful. It’s helpful. And uh conversation in the chat said, “Read Jack Han’s book about hockey systems.” Very helpful. Okay, there’s another recommendation. Uh ready for anyone else? For sure. Let’s get to anyone else, which is a presentation of Pacific Toyota dealers and the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid. A no compromised approach with electric vehicles that offers the best of both worlds. You can drive up 72 km in the battery alone, then seamlessly transition from electric mode to the gas engine for a combined range of 962 km. There’s no sacrifices when it comes to horsepower style with it sleek, low and wide exterior and sophisticated interior. It’s loaded with tech. It’s actually easy to use. You can plug in to recharge at home or one of the over 2,000 public charging stations in BC alone. And now you can lease a 2025 Prius plug-in hybrid SE from $99 weekly at 3.49% APR for 64 months with 3600 down and it includes a $3,000 discount. Visit shop toyota.ca or your local Pacific toy dealer today. All right, the JT Miller clip heard around the world. I woke up today and all of my Twitter feed was Rangers fans furious with JT Miller. It was He’s playing all the hits right now. The point totals are low. He’s talking about how I don’t I don’t judge my game based on point totals and not kick a guy while he’s down. I’m going to try to cool it a bit, but uh play the clip, Jacob. Play the clip. This is the one that’s going viral. Uh turns over the puck in that game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Gives up on the play. Vegas scores. The only thing that was missing from this was him pointing uh to the guy that took the puck from him. It was bad. It was a bad look, especially for a captain. It was a question we had heading into the year is like, “Okay, when things go poorly, what’s his body language going to be like?” And to this point it was good, but there it is. That that’s what everybody was kind of waiting for in Vancouver and now um all the Rangers fans are seeing it. Yeah. And look, it’d be one thing where on that play he wasn’t the first forward back, so he doesn’t actually have a cent’s responsibilities in that sequence. He’s technically now taken on the role of a winger defensively, but the problem is you have two Vegas Golden Knights players along the boards. Zubenad who is now assuming the responsibilities of the center in that sequence is engaged in that battle. JT’s providing support there. Once you commit to that battle, you’ve got to follow your check and ensure that you don’t get outnumbered in that scenario. First, JT cheats to the wrong side thinking that he’s got an opportunity to get clean puck possession and carry it out of the zone and and get on the counter. And then in that sequence once Vegas comes out of it to just give up is you you can’t do that. It’s can’t do it. Can’t do it. It’s unacceptable. You’re And again, I understand that. Hey, if you were if you’re a winger normally in that situation in the D zone, your your responsibility is the point and technically a guy driving into the slot. Is it your responsibility? But again, it’s the context of there were two Vegas players along the boards there. So it doesn’t ma it doesn’t matter if you’re technically now the uh carrying the wingers responsibilities in the D zone. There are two Vegas attackers along the boards. You’re that second defensive forward supporting that battle. You’ve got to follow your check. You’ve got to ensure that there’s no easy lane to the net. And it’s part of the lows with JT Miller’s game. It’s such a bad look. That’s the only thing that I keep coming back to is it’s just a really really bad look. Um yeah, like and again it the the raw point totals are really bad right now for JT. Um someone did a list of which Canucks are outsc scoring him right now. He’s at 10 points on the season through 21 games. And look, the the thing is is we heard the oh they traded the wrong guy. But like at the time anybody who was asked about like would you trade JT or would you trade Elias Patterson and that’s oversimplifying what actually happened in this situation it wasn’t as simple as the CS picking one and we always pointed that out but if it were that simple the answer is always the guy who was 32 like signed long term and people as much as people complain about Philip Hedel’s health it’s like they got an asset to get off of that contract and that was a good like that was a win that was a Uh, it’s a lose-lose trade so far anyway. It’s it’s a trade that hasn’t worked out for either side. But you’re absolutely right in the sense that I remember polling a number of execs around the league. What should the Canucks do with this dilemma? And even the execs that love JT Miller and said, “I would rather if I had to play in a playoff series right now, if I had to pick one guy, I would rather JT Miller on my team.” Even those executives said, “As much as I like JT Miller, the player, the other guy is way younger, and I have a lot more faith in him living up to his contract long term as opposed to JT Miller.” Now, for the Rangers, the $8 million cap hit, it’s not ideal right now, but it’s not going to kill them in a rising cap, sure, world, but still, it clearly hasn’t worked out for either team. The other thing with JT is he quite clearly looks hurt, right? We we remember that he got hurt in camp and preseason and this is part of the issue for JT as well is he’s been a durable player in the sense that his games played totals have usually been very high. He’s rarely missed games because of injury, but he’s a guy that over his career has played through a ton of knocks. And now that he’s well into his 30s, he strikes me as a player that is likely going to be nursing knocks and bruises and bumps more often than not. And that’s a problem because when he’s not 100% healthy, you see that his ability to really move the needle and and make a difference starts to dwindle. Spatil with a super chat. I love this. This is good. Uh 279 super chat. He said this is PD defender Stanley Cup. People are having a good time uh with this one for sure. Uh thank you for the super chat. We had another super chat that I wanted to get to. It came earlier in the show when you were doing your PD deep dive. Uh it is from a user with the golden eye golden eye as their logo. I like that as your profile picture. uh said Nucks could draft Tyan Tyenan Lawrence at fifth if the draft was right now. You love to see it. I don’t know who that is, but I’ll take your word for it. He’s a center projected to go in the 3 to sixish range and probably close close guy. Is he s is he saving the franchise? I haven’t done a deep dive on him, so I don’t want to make any bold declarations, but I believe this year’s draft class is is unique in the sense that there aren’t many centers projected to go super high. So, if you miss out on this guy, chances are you’re not going to get a center. Now, it doesn’t matter too much in the sense that this organization just needs to add more elite talent, period. And if you end up drafting in the top 10, then just take the best player available. Don’t end up reaching for a center, especially because you now have a really talented one in Braden Coots in the system. But yeah, Lawrence is the only only center in that 2 to six 7ish range. Um that that would be available as 5’11. 5’11. Okay. All right. All right. Listen at was um listed at 510 in his draft class. He’s now six feet. He actually grew a couple inches. Yeah. Like you got to keep in mind we’re talking about 17 year olds here. They’re not done growing yet. If you’re 5’11 at 17, you might end up Connor Baddard is what? 5’11. Yeah. Are you saying he’s Connor Bard? No. Oh, he’s 5’10. Yeah. I don’t know. And Jacob, that’s not always true. Sometimes you’re done growing at 17, 18. If your name is David Cuadrelli, is that the case? Or you know who else is quads would have been like hearing the name in 2018? Quinn Hughes looked up his hockey DB page and gone, “Oh, he’s 5’10. I don’t want this guy. Give me Give me Evan Buchard who’s, oh, I love this. 6’2 63 or oh, Noah Dobson, 62 63. I don’t want the 510 guy.” Do you remember Bri Burk’s uh That’s a small body gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. That I I at the time I was like, “You’re right, Berky. You’re absolutely right.” Of course you were. Meanwhile, I I was I was doing cartwheels that he was even available. No, I was too. I I was too. I was too. He was supposed to go top three. No, I I was excited. I was Everyone was excited about Qu. Come on. Everyone there is not one person. As soon as you realized, and this was me at least, as soon as you realized that the were either going to get Philip Zidena or Quinn Hughes at the time, you were ecstatic. Yeah. Thank god that it was Quinn Hughes that was available to them because they were going to take whichever one of those guys didn’t go because as soon as as soon as Barrett Hatton got selected you were like oh my goodness this is this is great news for the conduct and everybody likes Quinn Hughes everybody like Quinn Hughes in this draft year stop Arizona was the closest it was the team closest to taking Quinn in that draft class it was between Hayton and Quinn uh Amina A are you guys shorter than Connor Garland. No, Connor Garland is like my height if not like an inch shorter. Yeah, I’m I’m You’re taller than a few inches taller than Yeah. Yeah. And hey, Connor Garland plays with plays with a lot of heart. Plays with a lot of heart. Uh, okay. Conversation. Quad sounds like the kind of guy who would have drafted Kaden Lindström over Demidov. Uh, what else is in the chat here? Let’s see. Let’s see. Oh, yeah. Rajcraft, wasn’t the real mistake trading B over JT Miller? Yeah, absolutely. Like in hindsight, yeah, it doesn’t come down to Patterson or uh Miller. There was actually a decision made on Miller over Horvat. Like that was an actual decision that the organization made and that they had to make. So they that was that Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. True. But also, I didn’t hear anybody saying that when JT put up 103 points and was their best forward leading them to the division win. Meanwhile, Bo was playing well, but wasn’t producing anywhere near uh JT’s level. Yeah. And in that I mean, he actually had a decent year in that 20 23 24 campaign. 68 points, but that’s nothing compared to the 103 J um JT had uh even last year 57 points for Bo. He’s off to a great start now and you’d love to still have him within the organization obviously, but it’s a bit tricky to say. That’s total hindsight. It’s total hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to make I was trying to make that clear. I think it felt true. There are times when Kucks fans have had an argument to say they picked the right guy and to say they’ve picked the wrong guy. All right. uh dueling hat-ticks last night from the two kids from Vancouver who obviously are both coming to Vancouver to win the Kucksa Cup one day. But we are seen dueling hat-ticks. No empty net for one of them. But uh Mlin Celbrini and Connor Bernard both with hatrick celibbrini completing his hat-tick uh with an overtime victory against the Utah Mammoths. like these guys are here and it’s naturally going to segue into a conversation about team Canada. Um, but these guys are amazing. Like it it is such a good time for the sport of hockey. Like I I keep saying this, the you you have the old guard, you still have Ovetkin playing, you still have Crosby playing, you’ve got Malcin, you’ve got all these old the the old guards still around. Then you’ve got kind of the middle guys. Like you’ve still got McDavid who’s been in the league for 10 years. That that makes me feel old. And then you’ve got these guys who were like infants when COVID happened. And you you’re seeing them lighting up the league right now. Like Conor Bernard’s got 10 goals in his past 10 games. This is awesome. It’s amazing. And and not just not just the the old guard, the you know Crosby Ovetkin, but you look at how many points Malin has put up. He’s on almost 100 point pace. It’s honestly similar to the NBA where this is a really special transitional golden age where you have the you have the last generation still cooking at an elite level. You have the young stars coming through playing at a legitimate superstar level. And it’s just fun seeing the two generations mold together where in the NBA you’ve got Victor Webbyama just destroying dudes and and showing that he’s the future of that league, but then you’ve still got Steph Curry and and Kevin Durant and LeBron just made his season debut last night. They’re still operating at an elite level, too. It’s a special era in both the NHL and the NBA in that sense where the the generational talents are still are are still doing generational things and you’ve got the next wave uh becoming mustwatch TV. Win a queen in the chat said uh I have a sit and OV poster in my bedroom generation of player. That’s where we’re at right now. It’s Well, it’s going to be sad. I’m I’m not ready for when Sid retires, for when Ovuchetkin retires, for when in in the NBA Kevin Durant was my favorite player, for when he retires, when there’s no more LeBron, when there’s no more Curry, and and all of those guys are probably going to retire around the same window. That’s going to be a very, very strange feeling for me. I agree. I agree. We’ve been getting Well, I’ve been getting called Unk lately a lot and uh that’s not going to help. That’s not going to help. Team Canada, both these guys have to be there. I feel like we agreed on that like two weeks ago. It’s just like map out the team. It’s kind of hard. It’s easy to say like, “Oh, this player’s great. He needs to be there.” There’s so many to choose from. And we talked about roles. I will say like M Celebrity and Conor Bard both have strong enough two-way games, I would think, that they can both be there. Yeah. And I think it’s probably not great news for Mark Shley because Shley, he’s playing really well this year, too. 27 points in 19 games, but Shifley and Bedard are a little bit similar where I imagine Team Canada looks at them and and goes, they’re not necessarily the best defensive players. They aren’t the most natural fits in a bottom six role, but they’re ultra talented offensively and have been putting up some of the best offensive numbers in the league. Shley was obviously left off the four nation team last year. I imagine he had a massive chip on his shoulder and if it wasn’t for Bard and Celibbrini doing what they’re doing, I imagine that he probably would have had a decent chance of making this Canadian Olympic team. Now to see that Baddard and Celibbrini are coming as well, that’s probably not great news for Mark Sh. Hey, did we get an update on Seth Jarvis, I don’t know. Okay, he’s like day to day. Okay, so he’ll Okay, he’ll be there. I was bringing it up because I’m like, okay, like is there any spots becoming available? Speaking of which, for Team USA, Charlie Makavoy out with no timetable for return after undergoing surgery. Uh, that’s a that’s a big loss. Like that is a big big loss for team USA. Makavoy arguably having one of the best years of his career too. I wouldn’t go that far. He’s played well, but I actually want to look up his his numbers because yeah, he’s I don’t think he’s been outrageously good. He’s not a guy that I looked at as an early Norris candidate, but no doubt that he’s the number one defenseman in Boston. It’s more a really tough break for Bruins team that surprisingly has been at the top of the Atlantic Division table and now they’re having to go through another year without um their number one defenseman because Makoy after for Nations last year wasn’t with them either. Yeah. Um Oh yeah, Drivers played versus the Bruins. Okay. And Oilers. Okay, he’s fine. People in the chat are pointing out the drivers played. I didn’t watch the next Carolina Hurricanes game. Like I said before the show, that was my first uh first Hurricanes game to watch. Um anything else with the Olympic conversation? Like I don’t know. Uh the barbecue injury, Luc Ryan, that really sucks. Like you’re I don’t know, man. The the freak accidents are crazy. You saw Jack Hughes and now this one as well. And for those that don’t know, he’s out uh E2 Rinan that is with uh the Panthers. He’s out with uh barbecue. Like, did he get burned? That must be I don’t know the details of it. Okay, hang on. I’m going to try to find this. I I would assume that a barbecue related injury probably has to do with a burn. How else How else are you going to injure yourself on a barbecue? Propane tank falls on your toe, maybe. Lid falls on your hand, although that Yeah, I’m I’m not sure. That would just lead to a burn, but Yeah. We don’t know what happened with the barbecue, but it was a barbecue accident. Um, so yeah. Okay. I think it was a burn because Paul Maurice said when he comes back and feels comfortable with the equipment on him, away we go. But I don’t know. I don’t Who knows? You never know. Um, yeah, that sucks. That just sucks. All right. Uh, anything else from either of you? No, I’m uh all good. Okay. Don’t make jokes about burns, man. I know neither of you work, but I’m saying to the chat, don’t don’t make jokes about barbecues and burns. It’s bad karma. Don’t do that. Won’t hear me doing it. What did I say for the bet yesterday, Jacob? What did I say? Was I right? I think you picked you. Yeah. What did I say? Uh, you blues to win. Oh, yeah. All right. Tonight the There’s I don’t like anything on the NHL slate. Is there a football game tonight? No. Nope. It’s Wednesday. H Oh, basketball. All right. Is this Quad’s first Oh my god. Yep. Yep. That’s right. That’s right. I I really want to see Quad’s attempt to talk about the NBA, buddy. Steph Curry’s awesome. Last I checked, Miami Heat suck. Uh, Warriors are plus 320 underdogs. They played last night. The Warriors played last night. Yeah, that’s why Warriors, you heard my Warriors coming back strong tonight. Steph, what’s his name? Steph Curry. Yeah, he doesn’t lose twice in a row. That doesn’t happen. Let me ask you. Let me because I’m curious to see if you actually know him. Yeah. Who’s the the Warriors new co co-star? Draymond Green. No, I said new co-star. Oh. Um, Klay Thompson’s not there anymore. Oh my god. Splash Brothers. I know. I know the Splash Brothers. You’re talking about like a decade ago. I Dude, NBA 2K16, one of the best games. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Uh, I’ll give you a hint. I’ll give you a hint if you don’t know. But you have to Is he Canadian? No. Ah, so it’s not Andrew Wiggins. Okay, one more. Give me a hint. Give me a hint. Uh, he used to play for Miami most recently. Jimmy Butler. Yeah, he’s on Golden State. Yeah, he’s on Golden State now. But there you go. Jimmy Butler’s coming for vengeance tonight against his former team. Plus 320 odds. Book it. Book it. Wow. There are some wonky odds in basketball. The Sacramento Kings are plus 1,000 underdogs against the OKC Thunder. That’s OKC is like a super team. Yeah, they’ve got the Canadian guy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got multiple Canadians. Um Well, you know who I’m talking about. The SGA kid. Yeah. Yes. Um but also Lou Dort who is Canadian as well. But B I don’t bet on basketball ever because you just do not know which players are going to sit out any given game, right? You can you can bet on a team and then you watch the game and all of a sudden their best player is sitting on the sidelines in a parka and a toque um and sunglasses. Unless you’re part of the mafia then then you might know. Yeah. Well, there you go. Who’s uh who’s Coop Cooper? Cooper flag flag. Yeah. the Mavs first, right? No, he’s not. No. Oh, all right. Why’ you think he was Canadian? I don’t know. You know, it is a fair assumption these days, though. There’s enough good Canadian players, you’re like, “Hey, that top pick might be Canadian because it actually happens now, which is kind of fun.” Uh, so is the Canadian Olympic team going to be like really good now? They disappointed. They’ve been competitive. Yeah. At the last Olympics, they they kind of choked a little bit, but they played a a pre-ournament exhibition game against the US, and I think they lost by like nine, and the US played most of their guys like like LeBron was playing, Kevin Durant was playing, and it was competitive until like late in in the fourth quarter. So, they’re probably the equivalent of like Finland in hockey. Yeah. like on any given day they could pull off the upset, but realistically like they’re still a little bit below. People don’t want to Well, I don’t know, maybe people do like my basketball conversation because there’s a lot of reaction to this in the chat, but we got to get out of here. So, plus 320 hammering it. Golden State Warriors money line plus 320 to take down. Let’s monitor this because if you win this one, then I think you got to ride this streak as long as you can take it for for the NBA. Also yesterday, Cali Kuck pointing out you convinced me to take the Blues. So technically that’s your loss. I mean, you forced me. I told you I’m not a vibes guy on a game-to-ame basis. I am. Golden State, baby. My Warriors. Uh plus 320. You can get them. Plus 320. Money line over on Bet 365. Whatever your bet is, it’s never ordinary at Bet365. Download the app and get on the game. Use the code nation at bet365. Must be 19 plus to play. If you choose to play, please play responsibly or my co-host Armen Dial Bruce Jacobsar. My name is Aglli. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. Family view Thursday tomorrow. Don’t miss it. We’ll see you tomorrow. My name is Aly. Thanks so much for watching episode of Kucks Conversation. Conucks conversation is live Monday through Friday, every weekday at 2 p.m. over on the Kucks Army YouTube channel. Make sure you like, subscribe, and interact in the YouTube live chat every day with us, folks.

The Canucks are back in Vancouver, and we bring you all the news and notes from practice ahead of tomorrow night’s game against Dallas. Quads and Harm also do a deep dive on the play of Elias Pettersson who has quietly put together a great month of November.

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