Chapter 1: What are the Canadiens' chances of staving off elimination?
Canuck Central on a Friday coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Step strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintec. It's Satyar Shah with Bik Nizar. And this hour of Canuck Central is brought to you by your lower mainland Boston pizza. The playoffs are here and BP is ready. So skip the couch, catch every hit, every goal, every save, every playoff beard.
This is how you watch Playoff Hockey. Playoff Hockey. An abbreviated one-hour show for you tonight. It's myself and Bic, and we have Yannick Hansen joining us coming up in a few moments, plus Mailbag Friday until 5, and then we will take you to puck drop between the Montreal Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes as the Habs are trying to stay alive with their...
Playoff lives at stake being down 3-1 against the Hurricanes. We always want to hear from you, especially on Mailbag Fridays. So get your thoughts in to our Dunbar Lumber text inbox, 650-650. Trusted by contractors and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for four generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. What's happening, Beck? It's stave-in day.
Stave? Can they stave off eliminations? my favorite word of the English language stave so the Canadians trying to stave stave penultimate the words that you know don't always get used but anytime we get the opportunity to use them we beat them like a dead horse yes that's how it goes That is how it goes. We are going to be joined by Yannick Hansen coming up in a few moments.
So let's get to a quick open brought to you by FiberTech, your exclusive dealer of house or roll luxury plumbing fixtures. Visit their state-of-the-art showrooms and experience centers in Surrey, Vancouver, and Coquitlam, or check out FiberTechBC.ca. We still await the announcement of a Canucks head coach pick. And, you know, things haven't really changed too much.
We talked about this earlier this week that nothing seems to be problematic in terms of the conversations that are going on between the Canucks and Manny Malhotra. One of the things that they're doing is essentially... juggling a bunch of things at the same time. Part of it is the AGM management search because they're still working that out.
And we know they need a head coach in Abbey if Manny ends up being the head coach in Vancouver. You need another GM for the Abbey team, an AGM. And we know when it comes to assistants and associate coaches, there are a lot of moving parts when you're trying to name a head coach and its staff. And it seems like they're working through that process.
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Chapter 2: How is the matchup between the Canadiens and Hurricanes analyzed?
And at the same time, perhaps curating a list of potential candidates if for whatever reason things don't get consummated with Manny Malhotra. I know there's been some reporting on this by Elliot Friedman and by Rick Dollywald the last 24 hours, and essentially is what we talked about on Monday.
So when we were being asked about this yesterday, people asking us, why aren't you talking about the new head coach? And we're like, well, nothing has changed since Monday, and the expectation is something will get done, but it looks like it's going to take until next week.
Yeah, we hit the over on the initial line set as well if it goes into next week because we're into June all of a sudden. But yeah, I guess no cause for concerns if you end with the right person or if you end with the person. They're just not on the immediate timeline that some fans want to continue to ride the wave of the hype right now.
Yeah, so I think next week we are going to have some clarity here one way or another. And I would expect we get not only an announcement of a head coach next week, but we get a few other moving parts set together. And we know that right now it's going to be a sprint to the draft. The combine is happening very soon.
And the next thing you know, as soon as the Stanley Cup ends, we go into the draft and then we go to free agency. So there's a lot that's going to be happening very, very quickly as soon as we get into June. And before we know it, Bick, I mean, the Stanley Cup final is going to start.
And as soon as that's over, it's going to be all hands on deck trying to figure out what the Canucks are going to be up to.
Yeah, like we're getting texts already. It's like, hey, what do you want to do at three? We're four minutes into the show. And yeah, it is fan interest is raising as we get closer and closer to the draft.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we're going to be joined by Yannick coming up in a few moments here. And obviously, just we mentioned it off the top, big game coming up between the Montreal Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes as they're trying to stay alive being down 3-1. I've, you know... I'm not saying I don't think the Habs will win tonight.
I think there was a chance they could pull that off. I just went from being so excited about the Habs, and not that I was cheering for them as if they're the Canucks or whatever, but I've always had a soft spot for Montreal, and if it's not going to be the Canucks as a Canadian team, I'm okay with the Habs making a deep push and having a big run.
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Chapter 3: What updates are there on the Canucks' head coaching search?
And I'm sure from Marty St. Louis saying, you know, like the pressure's off now. Nobody's expecting you guys to win anymore. You know, there's not much we can do except for win one game and try to stay alive. And do you feel like you can kind of go and push back? I just hope that they can extend this to Game 6. I'd love to see one more game in Montreal for Game 6 to at least get to that stage.
So we'll see if the Habs can push that forward.
I feel like we were in this spot last year as well. And I was kind of like, you know what? Let's get on with the Stanley Cup. Let's get to the offseason already. Let's force things over. Yeah. Because last year, the conference finals were like 4-1, 4-1, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was. So it was very much like, all right, Edmond, Florida, let's just move on. Let's get to the cup finals.
Let's get to the offseason. Let's see all these trades that we want to talk about. Let's see all these UFA signings that we want to see. Let's just get into that.
Yeah, and listen, from a Canucks perspective, what I really want to get into is what's going to be happening next. We've been spending a lot of time talking about the draft, of course, and that's been something that is coming up a lot sooner, but what's going to happen in free agency? What's going to happen trade-wise?
It's funny, you look at a team like Montreal, for instance, going back a couple months ago when we were talking about leadership, we were talking about ways for the team to find that type of leadership, and as much as you can find guys in free agency, there's been lots of discussions around
And defensemen like Luke Shen, for instance, there has been a lot of discussion around veteran players like Michael McCarron and guys like that that have been able to bring toughness and have some leadership. And there aren't that many available, and it could be a pretty competitive market for those players' services.
So we kind of wondered, would Montreal be open to moving Brendan Gallagher and giving you something for it? And I think that's kind of the next step of things that we're going to explore here is what are some of the... value bets the Canucks can make and what are some opportunities that might present themselves when looking at what they can do this offseason.
And I think Montreal with Brendan Gallagher, a name that's been popping off a lot recently that people talked about, and it goes back to something we discussed a few weeks back.
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Chapter 4: What challenges are the Canadiens facing in the playoffs?
But you always need to have layers of depth down the middle. And if you look at Philip Deneau, he has one more year on his contract coming up. And after that, the... He's up as well, so you do need some center depth, and it depends on how Montreal views this. They didn't spend a lot of assets this year to try to make a deep playoff push.
They made the Philip Deneau trade ahead of time, and that was essentially their trade deadline acquisition. So they do have a lot of their assets in place if they want to take a big swing.
Yeah. Now, they took a big swing, obviously, with Noah Dobson, and... giving up some pieces there. But as you mentioned, they've got all their picks here in the next few years. There's an opportunity for them to continue to bolster it. And you look at the overall team needs there for Montreal.
Maybe they want one more top six guy on the forward ranks as well, just to kind of slot everyone else into a spot. But yeah, part of that is going to be coming up with the finances for it. And if you can...
shed out the Gallagher contract in the short term but also as those deals come off the books as you mentioned Deneau's coming off a year from now Josh Anderson's coming off a year from now so they're again set up very well to if they don't stave off elimination today I'll drop that word in again one more time like they are set up to do this and have some staying power over the course of years
Yeah, that possibility obviously does exist. Tyler brings up another name. What about Robert Thomas for the Canadians, putting them over the top? Has a good cap hit as well. I think if you want Robert Thomas, you're probably going to have to trade Michael Haig. Sure. The reason I brought up EP40 is... it's going to be a discount price.
You're not paying your top assets to acquire a player along those lines. If you're trading for Robert Thomas, especially based on the ask St.
Louis has, and Frank mentioned this and the insiders said that the Blues have a very high ask for him, you're talking about trading potentially multiple first-round draft picks or you're talking about potentially trading away your best prospect and a first-round pick.
Yeah, and, you know, it's a great tweet as well that we got earlier just bringing up Haig. But, like, they're in a spot now. It's like, hey, we're in the conference finals. We've got a 27-year-old Nick Suzuki. We're starting to get into the spot here. Are we going to entrust an under-20 player to say, like, hey, you're our future second-line center starting now? Like, that's a big ask.
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Chapter 5: How has Montreal's youth impacted their playoff performance?
Not at all, especially when you have the opportunity. And look, his production, once he came back from the... the Olympic break and we talked to him before the Olympic break and it was very much like, hey, I just really want to get healthy. And then he came back and it did look a different player. And the production there, once he was paired with Besser, ends up being 20 points in 25 games.
That's pretty fantastic for a guy on a team that obviously had their struggles. So if he's got an outside chance at 70 points next season or yeah, the next summer, you've got a different opportunity here than you do right now.
Yeah, I think he'll play out this year because you're right. Even if the Canucks end up with the top five pick, but he has a very dynamic season. Number one, that might make you feel like you want to keep the player. But number two, the value would increase at least to a pretty big extent. Jay on X mentions Rossi for Gallagher and a first and a second round draft pick. Okay, that's interesting.
Yeah, that would be interesting.
My eyebrows are raised.
Yeah, I'm with you 100%. All right, before we get out, let's get to the third wheel. It's our draft simulator. We're going to find out who the Canucks are getting. So for the first time on the weighted wheel that Biknazar has created, and Caleb Malhotra has had the biggest share in terms of being the third overall selection, but he's only been selected once, and that was yesterday.
So let's spin that wheel.
Yeah, he's got a 30% share of the wheel. And as it spins and comes to a stop here today on our Friday, look, we can talk about you can have the biggest share, but sometimes you just have to have the smallest share. Chip in a chair. It is Gavin McKenna. Coming up again.
What? Gavin McKenna?
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