[00:00:00] Speaker A: Greetings. Here we go. It's time for a simmer in Gabby. Yes, indeed. What a weekend. The National Hockey League season about to kick off. Gabby, how the heck are you? Are you ready to go?
[00:00:11] Speaker B: I'm good. It's been too long.
Preseason is too long. Let's get this thing started. I feel like NFL players do where they don't want the games anymore. They just want to start. And you know, when you're not not behind the bench where you like not only to be, but you like the preparation that training camp comes with, you just want to see the thing starting for real. Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: A lot of guys are saying, forget the eight games, let's just keep it at six or less. I'm assuming you agree.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: I do, but I also understand the fact that it's money. And I mean, they say it now, but when the capital would only go up by 1 million, the players are going, oh, man, we want it going up more. So the revenue in the summer, they wish they played more because it's more revenue, but when it gets down to it, they don't want to play at all. And by the way, it's most of the time only two or three or the veterans only want to play two or three games. They don't want to play any more than that. And so it's really a showcase for a lot of free agents, american League guys and junior guys that are coming up.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: All right, you can find us on Spotify and all that good stuff on our YouTube channel at Simmerpuck and also, of course, on Vancouverhockeyinsider.com. Gabby, I'm starting the clock because this week we're going 25 minutes. We like to keep it snappy, we like to keep it efficient, and in honor of 25 minutes, we get to each pick a number. 25. You go first.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: When you first mentioned it, I picked Orland curtain back.
Well, he was the first Canucks captain, but I remember him more as a Leaf, as a third line center for the Leafs when they were in their glory days and their heydays.
And I remember him as being the best fighter in the NHL at the time, and that was my big things. If Curtin Back got into a fight, know he was going to was, he was pretty deadly with the that's, but I remember him as a tall, lanky centerman that played. But when we talked about it and you said he was the Canucks first captain, I can see him being a leader as well.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: All right, well, I'm going to go with Joe Newendyke because he's a Multi Cup winner with different teams. And I don't know if it was you or someone else that mentioned me this week that Lanny McDonald always brings up his huge goal with Calgary in the final. If it wasn't for the pass from Joe Nuendike, he's not the So and just a class act. I remember being at Gretzky's restaurant in Toronto. Not necessarily expecting him to be there for an interview because we'd kind of talked and emailed and texted and kind of left it alone for two, three weeks. And suddenly Joe Newendike walks through the door and he's like, hey, I'm here to do that interview we talked about three weeks ago. So just a super cool guy. Another great number, 25. Now, just before we get into all the injuries that are going on and the waivers for the current vancouver canucks. If we're going to go back a little bit in time, how about stan smeel, a guy that, after 45 years with the canucks organization, is moving over to kind of become a business and community ambassador and number twelve, obviously maybe the greatest there.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I hope they have a real special night for him at some point.
He was by far the most special guy that I had met in Vancouver as far as management and personable people.
And more than that, I remember when him and I were both like I was being introduced to the team and Stan went in first and did a passionate speech, and you could tell it was from the heart, and I think it resonated with the players more than anything I had to say.
But you could tell that he bled canuck colors and that he was a proud canuck.
I can't say enough good things for him when things weren't going as well as I would have liked them to go for me, he was the guy I could talk to. He was the guy that had a common sense approach to things, and I really appreciated the time I had for him with him. So I wish him the best. I hope if this was his decision, that he surely enjoys the rest of his time doing what he wants to do. Yep.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: They called him steamer, and of course, new Westminster Bruins. He won two memorial cups. I think he was involved in more than the two that he won, but a very successful junior player and a madman. And I passed along the story on Vancouver hockey this week when I wrote about it. My very first game ever on a press credential in the national hockey league was November 1, 1981. $10 under the table to get sound, and it was the Vancouver Canucks at the Detroit Red Wings. The wings won three to one, but Smeel had a fight, a roughing minor, a slashing minor, and an assist.
I just remember I knew so much. I was so into hockey then as I am now, and I remember thinking, who the hell is this guy? Because I didn't know much about the Canucks in 1981, but he definitely stood out. And that pretty much summarized the guy's whole career.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, he was never ending work, and I know we lost one memorial cup to the Marlies. Just had to throw that out because I remember that very well, because you were on it. Yes.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: There you go. Congratulations.
All right, let's get into this, man. I don't know if it's bad karma or what's going on, but some changes along the blue line today at practice, the Canucks had a Sunday skate. First of all, Carson Susie, apparently, week to week after getting injured late second period, he got his leg, knee, ankle twisted under Sharon Povich of the Calgary Flames and the brand new D man who comes over from the Seattle crack and great guy. I enjoyed talking to him during the informals in September up in BC.
He's out. He's out week to week. So it's a blow to that blue line that doesn't need blows.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah. No, he's a guy I really liked. And when I was there, every chance I had to talk about good things about Carson, I would say, because he started with me in Minnesota, and he was just a young kid. Actually, his first five games, I think, were all playoff games against Winnipeg the one year. And then he played for us the next year, and I thought he had a great future. And he's big, and he's strong, and he's something that the Canucks could really use. And it's unfortunate. I hope his injury isn't too long term, but he will be missed on the blue line.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: And he's a guy. They've had this continuous struggle. Of course, you had Luke Shen next to Quinn Hughes for a while. It was kind of his enforcer. He kind of protected him and put up big minutes and all that. But generally speaking, that right side has been a sore spot now with the Canucks for a little while here. And Susie was, even though he's a lefty, was supposed to maybe slide over and play time on the right and make it maybe a by committee partnership for Quinn Hughes. So it's just another blow for trying to figure out what's going on at the first.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Don't know. I don't know if by committee ever works, you grab somebody and you stick with it until it doesn't work. Mean, luke shen was perfect for Quinn.
He would let Quinn do what he wanted to do. He would protect him. And the thing with Luke was, he was so good at just making that first easy play. Every simple play you could make, it would be Luke would make it. So it wasn't a question of him trying to compete and get up the ice with Quinn or anything else. I thought it was a really good partnership at that time.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Let's talk about a couple of the moves. Christian Wolanin gets waived and sent down. This is a guy who's kind of bubble AHL, NHL, maybe moves the pucks, but not a very physical guy.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think when they got him last year, he was an AHL all star or the defenseman of the year, and he was averaging, like, a point a game. Offensively but I mean that doesn't usually generate to getting to the NHL and having that same kind of I wasn't they didn't call him up too often I think a game or two when I was there. So I don't really know a lot about him. I mean he was good in training camp but they got him as a depth player so obviously they think their defense is much better and he goes back to being a depth player that they can use whenever they call him up. If he clears waivers, who knows, I mean he might have had a good enough second half last year that some team out there is in the same boat with injuries and they need a guy right now and he might be a guy that they look at.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Teddy bluger also left practice early today, so more issues potentially with the bottom six. Jack studnika apparently was waived so that's another player that's going know we're well aware of alias pedersen's talent, JT. Miller, all the qualities he brings to the table, andre Kuzmenko, what he turned out to be or potentially could continue to be, but the bottom six has just been it hasn't helped there. We use Seattle example, depth, scoring, balance, just roll lines. It's something that canucks have had a hard time doing. Sometimes it's injuries, sometimes just a lack of consistency.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well the bottom six, there's a lot of movement in a lot of the mean. The one thing you have to do is you have to have a reliable at least three so you can play nine players at a time. I believe you can't just be switching it around every day and not that they're doing that, but if they keep running into injuries, they're still experimenting in my estimation and hopefully at some point they can find a line.
I was lucky in my first year there that we found a line of Tyler Mott and Lamaco and I mean, they just clicked and they played together really well and they became a really good 3rd, 4th line combination, whatever you want to call it. But they had great chemistry and I think sometimes you find great chemistry just by experimenting and you might not know where you're going to find it, but you end up finding mott was tell.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Me a little bit about the scouting port for Mott at that stage of his career. I mean, you were pretty happy plugging him into that role.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Oh, I liked him. I think there's a lot of teams that liked him.
Unfortunately, I think at that point that Tyler thought he was worth more on the open market. He was on his last year of his deal and I think he was expecting x amount of money and the canucks were only willing to pay x amount of money and when they reached an impasse that neither one was going to blink, that that's when they traded him to the Rangers. And subsequently signed with Ottawa, traded back to the Rangers and I forget where he is this year but I know he's down in the east somewhere. Might be Tampa or something but I'm not sure.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he might be Florida. I have to double check that. I do remember his name popping back up.
Part of this also is just management kind of making a decision as well isn't it? Like everybody getting on the same page as who they like or who they want? Because that maybe often factors into the consistency factor, does it not? It's like on the same page.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Well I think you have to be on the same page. I don't think it's management can be making this decision by itself. I mean, you got to ask Rick who he feels comfortable playing in that position. And I have no idea, obviously, but if he felt comfortable playing X player all the time, even though that guy was somebody that the upper management didn't like, then they would have to have a conversation to see if you can convince them to keep that guy over somebody else.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Hey is it true somebody brought this up to me this week that random theory that bad habit like habits determine success for a certain kind of an abstract thought here in terms of the percentage of effectiveness for players and that bad habits just simple things like not keeping your stick on the ice. Any form of bad habit can cost a player 510 15 points in a season. Is that crazy talk?
[00:13:04] Speaker B: No. I mean we talk about habits all the time is getting into good habits whether you have success with them on an individual basis, time. But I mean habits are you create good habits and you create bad habits.
A bad habit would be not coming back checking through or tracking whatever word you want to call it back through the middle, just coming back. Bad habit would be coasting to the bench on a line change rather than getting hard to the line change. Those are habits that other teams see and other teams react to them. I know with me like I would show it every now and again on the video. This is when we're playing well this is what we're doing and using line changes as an example of coming off hard and going on hard. And then when you're not having success and you're all weighed the other end and you stop skating and you're just waving your stick that you're coming over it's just a bad body language. It's a terrible habit and it's a habit you try to keep people from getting into or if they're into it you kind of break it. There's always been a player on the Canucks that I tried to break that habit and it's tough to get through to them sometimes that would be online changes, online changes like this and then coast, put your head down or even changing at the wrong time. Like, I mean, for example, changing when you're the third guy high or something and they're coming back and just decide to change rather than changing when we get the puck out and you get to dump it in and getting five guys on there in a good position defensively rather than having a cluster of guys coming off when you shouldn't be coming off.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it was actually Scout who raised this topic with me or got into this conversation with me about the bad habits because he obviously concerned about his players having good habits. The one that always leaps out to me first is small, but it's stopping on pucks. So stopping going instead of circling the skate.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: I mean a habit of going to the net and
[email protected], too, instead of doing flybys, because that's where you don't score goals. I mean, we do drills all the time of going to the net and making sure guys stop because all the pucks, if there's a rebound, it's usually going to be in front of the net and the guys do the big swing behind the net. It used to drive me crazy, I tell you.
It's one of the things that I would say, coaches pull their hair out, but I got none left anyway. So what are you going to do?
[00:15:55] Speaker A: I want to talk a little bit about the Pacific Division and switch gears. Just go a little broader topic here because obviously, I don't know, the injury bug here right now with Vancouver Mckayev has been injured again. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I saw a headline on a story I wrote maybe about 14 months ago. He left a game during your preseason.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: First or second preseason game is when he had come over and his knee wasn't really mean. He'd played on it the year before, and he was fine with remember, I think it was a little hit at the blue line against Seattle, I think, and he came off. And then it was one of those things where he had a partially torn ACL from the past, but they deemed that it was okay to play. He felt strong, and to be honest, you watch him in the gym and everything, it was really strong. But I remember talking to Milstein in San Jose and saying that he's given it everything he's got. I really like him. He's a really good player, but he's only going at about 75%.
He didn't have that burst of speed that you saw when he was with the Leafs, which made him such an effective penalty killer. And so I think it was at about around that time that they knew that they were going to shut him down come the All Star break and just so he'd be ready for this year. Evidently, it's taken a little longer than he thought it would be, but they shut him down as soon as they shut me down pretty well, by the.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Way, Milstein, Dan Milstein being the agent for Mccav and also the agent for Andre Kuzmenko, by the way, the Canucks today. And we started that fourth line conversation initially, and I guess the whole impetus for that, which I didn't even bring up, was that they traded for Sam Lafferty today. So they brought a guy from Pittsburgh who Jimmy would have been familiar with, and that was for a fifth rounder in this upcoming draft. So Lafferty, I guess, right shot center, they're just trying to add depth and solve some problems.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think if they're sending Stood Nika down, they're thinking that Lafferty could probably take his spot.
I know they liked him when he was in Pittsburgh. I know his name had come up before, but they definitely both Patrick and Jimmy had seen him before, so they know all about him.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Listed as a center, but you're saying he's more of a right wing.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: I think they played him on right wing a lot. This is, memory serves, in Toronto and in Pittsburgh. I don't know much when he was traded to Chicago, where they played him all that much, but I know he could skate. I know at one point they told me he's a really good skater. He's big. He's got a good shot. So we'll see how that works out.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: All right, pacific Division as teased.
I'm putting the Canucks and the Kraken kind of on that bubble. I think Calgary is going to have a bounce back year. Vegas is Vegas. Even if they have a little hangover, they'll come around. And then Edmonton, I think every year, everybody says, oh, Oilers are finally going to win it. So they're going to be determined. 97 is going to make sure they're determined. What are your thought about the top three, top five?
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Well, first of all, Edmonton is like the Leafs. I mean, every year they're supposed to win the cup, right?
But to me, until their defense improves and until they can play a four line league, I mean, I haven't seen a team win the cup since I've been around that only used three lines all the time.
You've got to use everybody on your team. And I've said this earlier to somebody that if McDavid gets down to playing 21, 22 minutes and Dry Citadel 21, 22 minutes, and they're more complete of a team like that, then I think they've got a really good chance because those two guys are two of the top five players in the world. If they're goaltending, if pans out again, like Jack Campbell had a bad year last year, but a good training camp. This Skinner, I mean, I've seen an awful lot of guys have sophomore slumps, and especially when you come in as a rookie, your hometown is mean. And the big difference why they have sophomore slumps is the first year, all they do is train. They've got no mean, they're not famous, all of those things. Now he's famous, now he's from Edmonton, he's got more friends, he's got more business associates and usually you don't work quite as hard as you did the previous year and you get into sophomore slumps. Now, I don't know if he did any of mean, but that's one of the reasons people do have sophomore slumps. But Edmonton's going to be up mean. You didn't have La in and I think La has always been one of the tougher teams in the league to play against. I mean, Kopitar and Doughty are getting older, I get it. But they know with the addition of Dubois and they still have De Noah as their third line center. I think their depth down the middle is really know. I think they play Anaheim five mean and San Jose four mean. There should be nine wins right there but I think they'll be in the mix. I think what's going to happen, I think Vancouver is going to be fighting for that fifth playoff spot in the Pacific. And it's really funny because three years ago the Pacific was called the Weak Sisters. Now they're one of the best divisions in the NHL. I mean, I think they have six teams fighting for four or five playoff positions and with Vancouver and Calgary being two of them.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, seattle is pretty relentless. I mean, I'm not know a couple, the Morgan geekies and the Ryan Donatos move on. They bring in Pierre Edward Belmar by the way. He's getting up there in age, face off guy and a penalty killing guy. Do you have much of opinion on Edward?
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Hard worker and every team seems to like him when he gets there.
I think the one thing about Seattle is they're not going to creep up on anybody this year.
Last year I think the first 20 games they might have creeped up on a few teams not thinking they were much good. We had an idea right off the bat in Van because they beat us in the first preseason game in overtime and then in the second game they beat us soundly where I don't know if we touched the puck. So we knew that they were relentless. They'll be in your face and all of that. And if they can get better goaltending this year, I think they should be still a playoff team for this.
They, they relied a lot on Martin Jones last year and he played a little bit over his head for what you were thinking that he would be. And this year I think they should be. If their goaltending is better, I think they'll be just as good or better than they were last year. Yeah.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: And Joey Decord just beat out Chris Driger for the backup spot. So it's grubauer. And Joey Decord and Marty Jones. By the way, I did an interview with him, chatted with him on the phone. I don't know, about a month ago after he moved. And so he's kind of an emergency backup at this point for Toronto. I mean, he's not plugged in. He's not going to do what he did in Seattle unless somebody gets hurt. Right.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: I don't know what Tampa's goaltending is still all about. And they might need somebody as a stop gap if they don't believe that Johansson and their backup can do the job for the first eight to ten weeks of the season. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: By the way, you're right. Tyler Mott was Tampa. We were correct. It was the Sunshine State for him.
And the rest of the Waiver wire haven't checked, although we do know for the Canucks, as we mentioned, off the top Studnica and Willan are the couple of the guys that have moved down. Speaking of goaltending, I think a lot of people are expecting Markstrom to have a big bounce back in Calgary.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Well, you know mean, I don't know how many years he's played, but in the NHL, let's just go for number seven. Okay? I'm guessing, I mean, he's had six good years and one bad year. So why wouldn't we think that he can come know that almost every player in sports has one bad year if you have a long career or one mediocre year. I mean, Alex Oveskin had 32 goals one year and that was when he was in his early 20s. So, I mean, if that can happen, anybody can have a bad year. But I think you're right. Markstrom is a really good goalie.
If his mind is on straight and everything's good and he doesn't have any other problems, I don't see why I mean, he shouldn't have a great year. Vancouver people know him as well as anybody, and he was great in Vancouver.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Guess what, Gabby? What that sound is the buzzer. 25 minutes. Joey Newendyke and orland curtainback. Our time is up. Great stuff, by the way. I was just pulling up Markstrom and if you take away kind of this little ticky tack thing that he did his first, it looks like four or five seasons, where he had one NHL game, seven NHL games, then 23, then twelve, then four, then three.
He's been a regular since 20, 15, 16. He played 32 games for the Canucks that year, so he's been around a little while. He's a 33 year old guy.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think that's overly old for goaltending. No, I expect him to have a bounce back year, and I expect it to be the Pacific Division every game to be a battle, and it should be fun to watch if I can stay up for a lot of them.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: So who wins the cup then? Leafs or Oilers? Oh, boy.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Well, it hasn't been in Canada since 1993, so I got to believe that there's a good chance that it's not going to be in Canada for another year.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: How about if it was the final between those two, then you'd have the streak ends there. Somebody's got to win it.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah, but I don't think Mr. Bettman wants to see those ratings.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Gabby, thank you very much. We'll see you on the next Simmer and Gabby, vancouverhockeyinsider.com and Spotify and everywhere else, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much. Great job, as usual.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: All right, have a great day. Thanks, Ron.
