Thomas Drance

I appreciate the passion.

I'm all, I'm all for that stuff, but it's, uh, for me, I'm going to get to Buffalo next Tuesday, just do some extra legwork ahead of round one to see if I can get any more, um, sort of a feel, you know, talk to some agents, talk to, um, yeah, mostly agents.

Uh, I don't really think I'll talk to any teams, but, uh,

You know, just really get some extra opinion, some extra background maybe on a few players that I could use and look forward to night number one.

Nobody's told me any differently.

So it seems like it's all signs pointing to them really liking Caleb Malhotra.

But, you know, again...

I'll say that or I'll preface that by saying that I think it really just depends, duh, what happens ahead of them.

I mean, if the San Jose Sharks go off the board a little bit here or just decide that they absolutely want to draft a defenseman called Chase Reed, Keaton Verhoff, whatever.

then that opens up a slot for somebody else to fall into the Canucks' lap.

So, you know, I have to stick to my guns on who I think are the top two players in the draft.

And as you guys know, I've got that as Stenberg and McKenna.

And then after that, we'll see what happens.

But I'm led to believe, or nobody's told me any differently on the Malhotra front.

So until that day, it's not like I got the hotline.

I don't have the bat pole connected to Harv's house there in the ballpark or anything like that.

How would you react if the Canucks were to take Malhotra ahead of Ivar Stenberg?

What would, in your mind, sort of the analytical consequence, right?

Not the consequence because at the end of the day, we can't know what these guys will be five years down the line with absolute certainty.

We're not fortune tellers, no matter how invested and how experienced we are at breaking down players' spooks.