Podcast (Audio) NHL Radio: Canucks team preview

[Hammer79]

Jim 'Boomer' Gordon and Jake Hahn did their Canucks preview today.

Boomer is especially not a fan of Benning allowing Markstrom, Tanev and Toffoli to walk and dumped on Benning in the GM grades segment a couple weeks ago, giving him an F.

Five Burning Questions:
1) What do we expect from Pettersson and Hughes? Boomer: Hughes had a low water mark last year, he'll learn from it. EP is an exceptional talent, superstar, still learning, will break out.
Hahn: Know what we will get from EP, will play great point per game. On Hughes, wonders what is going on with bringing in OEL since he will be #1, curious what the club thinks of Hughes wrt being a liability in his own end. Will OEL stunt QH?

2) Coyotes trade? Boomer doesn't like OEL's play over the past years, leap to take on 6 years of OEL at 30, banking on him needing a change of scenery, has looked 'dead as a doornail' the last few years. What if he can't do it anymore? May be a worse contract than Eriksson.
Hahn: Likes Garland part of deal, OEL is the big question mark. Was he sick of playing for Arizona, will he be rejuvenated playing in Vancouver? Will be a complete disaster if he plays as he has the last couple years. More okay with the deal than most people, roll the dice and hope he gets back to his old form again.

3) How do we feel about Demko? Hahn: Our questions not answered yet. Draw a line through last year and give him a fresh slate this year, excited about the potential. Boomer: Likes him, feels defense was the problem. Feels he is the guy. (Do they know he put up a .915 on a terrible defensive team?)

4) How do we feel about Travis Green? Boomer: Questioned why they took so long to re-sign him. Got to show confidence in your coach, why was he left as a lame duck, not a ringing endorsement to wait. Hahn: Going into the season on a 'luke warm seat'. May get canned early in the season if they get off to a bad start. Been here long enough, 4 to 5 years.

5) Playoff team? Hahn: I'm putting them in the playoffs, a couple of spots in the Pacific. 1st Vegas, 2nd Edmonton, Kings push for 3rd, Vancouver 3rd or take one of the wild card spots from the Central.
Boomer: No, I Took them last year to make the playoffs and got burned, said they wouldn't make it in 2020 but made it so I'm never on the right side of the prediction with this team. He feels there are too many questions especially with OEL, doesn't know what they are so he's going to say 'No'.

Brendan Batchelor was also on the show. He said that he has Rathbone winning the spot on the 3rd pairing and that Juolevi will end up in Abbotsford to start the season. He said that Podkolzin was the young player to watch, possibly on the 3rd line.

Click to read more...

 

[DFAC]

Thanks for posting this, no surprise re: Juolevi. I'm pretty sure Rathbone has already leapfrogged Olli on the depth chart. OJ will have to play lights out to earn a regular spot in our top 6 imo.

The rest of it is pretty spot on

 

[JAK]

Boomer is especially not a fan of Benning allowing Markstrom, Tanev and Toffoli to walk and dumped on Benning in the GM grades segment a couple weeks ago, giving him an F.

So he would rather lose Demko?

His opinion isn't worth anything from that point alone.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

So he would rather lose Demko?

His opinion isn't worth anything from that point alone.

Ive never even heard of Jim 'Boomer' Gordon.....If you're on the radio , and you don't have your facts straight, it's not a good look...There's nothing really illuminating about what he's saying either..(no insider info etc).

 

[JAK]

Ive never even heard of Jim 'Boomer' Gordon.....If you're on the radio , and you don't have your facts straight, it's not a good look...There's nothing really illuminating about what he's saying either..(no insider info etc).

I haven't heard of him either, and honestly, anyone can make their own radio shows anyways.

The agent's mouth piece Rick Dhaliwal has his own show too. *Shrug*

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I haven't heard of him either, and honestly, anyone can make their own radio shows anyways.

The agent's mouth piece Rick Dhaliwal has his own show too. *Shrug*

I like Dhaliwal, and he is a legit source....but I agree,...anybody can get on the air, and claim to be an expert..In order to build an audience, they have to reel off a bunch of hot takes, and the next thing you know...a poster from HFCanucks is claiming them to be a legit source.

 

[rypper]

It's the from the NHL network on Sirius xm.

 

[Hammer79]

So he would rather lose Demko?

His opinion isn't worth anything from that point alone.

Agreed, I guess he wanted us to re-sign Markstrom with a NMC and then expose Demko? That would have been beyond stupid. Although if Markstrom didn't get a NMC, we could have exposed him and Seattle would have passed, because they are trying to be the Sabres-west and not take on any money.

Boomer and Hahn are on Channel 91 Sirius XM radio, the official NHL channel and have a regular, year-round show. They tend to pay more attention to American-based teams (because that's their audience) and I found Boomer's takes on the Canucks to be that of someone who only watched a few games. He was really put off by their early season games against the Canadiens and Toffoli lighting them up.

They also did the Tampa Bay Lightning yesterday, Hahn has them as the team most likely coming out of the East, Boomer thinks they are the favorite to 3-peat with Vegas and Colorado being the only other top-tier contenders in the league.

This really had my eyes rolling. VGK almost lost in 7 to the Wild in the first round because they have no scoring, beat an Avs team which played run-and-gun with no defensive D, then got smothered by a bad Canadiens team because they have no Center depth or scoring, and they haven't done anything to address this other than shedding MAF. Meanwhile, Tampa lost their entire 2nd line and won't have Kuch waiting on IR until game 1 of the playoffs. I think this is a year Tampa steps back.

 

[Hammer79]

Ive never even heard of Jim 'Boomer' Gordon.....If you're on the radio , and you don't have your facts straight, it's not a good look...There's nothing really illuminating about what he's saying either..(no insider info etc).

These are team previews, they aren't reporting new information, they are giving their opinion on each team in the league. They have been previewing 2 teams per day on SiriusXM 91 (NHL network) for the past couple of weeks. They have a reporter on who follows each team, they play a coaches interview, go through stats packs, then do their '5 burning questions' and make a prediction. They are on official NHL radio and tend to tow the commissioners line. (don't criticize officiating too harshly, focus on big American markets etc)

 

[NYVanfan]

Im a big fan, listen to sirius xm hnl radio all the time, and think Boomer is the best guy on there.

That said i think he’s always been a bit negative about the canucks (wouldnt go so far as to say hater …but he is an isles guy in TO)

negative on the team for years, though results of course have been bad, so…

Hard to argue with his team preview this year — but he basically punted by saying “i dont know what they are”

In his GM report cards earlier in the summer he gave Benning the only F he handed out (so im sure many here would love that), but a couple things irked me. He basically glossed over the moves this summer and hammered them for last year — particularly Marky/Toffoli/Tanev. Yet, with many other teams he regularly criticizes big money long-term deals to aging players (like the Hyman deal this summer.) one thing about all the Canucks moves this year that i dont hear much about, they got significantly younger.

ps Jake Hahn had the canucks in the cup final this year, lol. Lots of people were high on them after the bubble performance.

one thing they both agreed on, this is a make or break year — if they lay another egg heads will roll top to bottom.

personally i think to say they miss the POs is pretty negative — they only have to stay ahead of the non-Vegas US teams…

 

[Diversification]

Seems like a pretty reasonable take. My main concern this upcoming season is the return of Travis Green as HC. No one looks good playing in his system and I'm very skeptical that Brad Shaw will move the needle in terms of defensive structure. For this reason, I expect our new D will struggle (Poolman and OEL, especially as they'll be tasked with more defensive duties) much in the same way that Schmidt did. For the same reason, I expect Dickinson's defensive advanced stats to similarly take a hit.

My take: If the team cannot play more efficient (less frenetic, more energy conserving, far better puck support) defensive hockey, we will be out of playoff contention in March. A lot hinges on Travis Green finally 'getting it' and coaching a more conventional defensive game. I'm not holding my breath...

 

[NYVanfan]

This may be an accurate take but I am curious has there been a discussion about the specifics of Green’s strategy versus others?
he seems to be just in much more of offensive coach wanting to go as up-tempo as possible, as though he were coaching the prime Red Wings of a couple decades ago, problem is they have not had the horses to play that style and get exposed easily. In the bubble for example when they beat St. Louis they were largely outplayed, but when they had it going (~30% of the time) they looked awesome, very fast creative offense hockey. I for one like this style and would love nothing more than for them to become a contender playing it but I wonder if they need to be more tight defensively…. God forbid we go back to some sort of Sutter/Torts ultra defensive style…

Seems like a pretty reasonable take. My main concern this upcoming season is the return of Travis Green as HC. No one looks good playing in his system and I'm very skeptical that Brad Shaw will move the needle in terms of defensive structure. For this reason, I expect our new D will struggle (Poolman and OEL, especially as they'll be tasked with more defensive duties) much in the same way that Schmidt did. For the same reason, I expect Dickinson's defensive advanced stats to similarly take a hit.

My take: If the team cannot play more efficient (less frenetic, more energy conserving, far better puck support) defensive hockey, we will be out of playoff contention in March. A lot hinges on Travis Green finally 'getting it' and coaching a more conventional defensive game. I'm not holding my breath...

 

[Diversification]

This may be an accurate take but I am curious has there been a discussion about the specifics of Green’s strategy versus others?
he seems to be just in much more of offensive coach wanting to go as up-tempo as possible, as though he were coaching the prime Red Wings of a couple decades ago, problem is they have not had the horses to play that style and get exposed easily. In the bubble for example when they beat St. Louis they were largely outplayed, but when they had it going (~30% of the time) they looked awesome, very fast creative offense hockey. I for one like this style and would love nothing more than for them to become a contender playing it but I wonder if they need to be more tight defensively…. God forbid we go back to some sort of Sutter/Torts ultra defensive style…

As near as I can tell, Green's system is an outlier at the NHL level. Basically, team defense from the blueline in is to rely on the 2 D to retrieve the puck deep and between the 2 of them get a quick out to one of the 3 forwards - wingers high on the halfboards and the center roving in the high slot. If that isn't successful (and it often isn't), the plan is to contain the attacking team to the outside using stick work and blocking shooting lanes. Again, the spacing for the forwards and the D remain the same: D low, forwards high. The hope is to win back possession with sticks for a quick out going the other way.

There are a number of issues with this scheme. 1) It relies heavily on your D to gain control and our D are slow. It's also just a stupid way to play because it invites the opposing team dump it in, overload a side to win possession, which then puts our D in a bad scenario where they're likely to lose possession before they can pass it to a forward. 2) When that happens, the forwards are in a tough position. They go from trying to cherry-pick a pass for an odd-man rush to scrambling to contain a cycle. That's why we often look like we're on the PK after a regular dump-in. 3) Playing a PK-like D is exhausting. This is exacerbated by our crappy travel schedule leading to injuries and general fatigue, which leads to mental errors; Errors that are magnified in the 2nd period with the long change.

I mentioned this before: hoping that Brad Shaw can somehow fix this while not being the HC himself, is pretty optimistic thinking.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

Yep, runs ES D like it's a PK, and runs ES O like it's a PP - having the guys pass around the perimeter until a scoring lane gets open. I agree, he seems to want to run a possession game not unlike the Wings did, but doesn't have the horses. It might explain why they went after OEL when they already have Hughes, Myers and Rathbone.

Someone mentioned Shaw above - he's not going to be running the D, he's apparently going to run the PP, they're sticking with Baumgartner as the D man.