Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to Canucks Talk here on Sportsnet 650. Jamie Dodd, Thomas Drance. We're broadcasting live from the Kintex studio. 650-650 is the Dunbar Lumber text line trusted by contractors and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. This segment brought to you
By JanPro, reliable cleaning, clear communication, and service you can count on. That's JanPro. Start clean, stay clean. Visit JanPro.ca. And on a Wednesday, as always, we did the crossover in the first segment. So right now, let's wrap up with the whiteboard.
All right, now fellas, let's focus up.
It is your daily deep dive into what's up with the Canucks for today, May 6th. And the headline is... The lottery luck once again does not come through for the Canucks. Fans have long become accustomed to now. They're picking third in the 2026 NHL draft. The Toronto Maple Leafs are picking first. The San Jose Sharks jumped all the way up from ninth to number two.
And that leaves the Canucks in the third spot. And as I've been saying, that's fine. This is the start of a long process, and the Canucks are going to get a really, really good young player. You take your lumps, you deal with the disappointment last night, and you move forward. I will add this. If you are kind of crashing out about the pick or the results last night,
I think the place to focus your disappointment is not on the Leafs getting first overall, as frustrating as that is, and I understand why. It's the Sharks, a team that already has Macklin Celebrini and a whole bunch of other really exciting young players jumping over the Canucks in your own division and drafting ahead of you once again.
I think that's the tougher beat for the Canucks, as frustrating as it is to see the Leafs get to enjoy something.
By a absolute country mile, that is the worst part of this. The San Jose Sharks, 14 wins, more than the Canucks. 14 wins. Dominated them head-to-head when they played. Celebrini's 19. Will Smith is 20. Michael Miza is 18. People, by the way, don't like – I saw someone on Twitter was like – I got into a Twitter debate with somebody. Really? I don't remember who. I don't remember who.
And it was about... they were like, you know, talking about Michael Misa as a trade ship basically. And I was like, well, he's more valuable than Will Smith. And they were like, no way, no, no chance. And it's like, yeah, absolutely. Like he, he had the Leo Carlson, Stephen Stamko style rookie year. Yeah. First rookie year where like, he wasn't always in the lineup.
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Chapter 2: What does the Vancouver Canucks' third overall pick mean for their future?
this Sharks team is never going to be close again in Celebrini's prime to having a chance to land a player like this. Like, this is it. This is the last chance that they'll ever have. I think if you're a Canucks fan, you are rooting hard for them to pass on Stenberg, not just because that would be great for the Canucks, but because...
it would be a deeply inefficient use of a pick this high for San Jose.
And this text came in on that point. It was from Tyler. He said, is there any world where the Leafs take Stenberg and the Sharks take Reed, or is that people just overthinking it? And I said, look, I think that's overthinking it.
Now, if we want to limit it to people, it would be two organizations overthinking it, but it's not 0%. Yeah.
And that, cause I, like I started to hear last night and this morning, the, well, the Leafs might not take McKenna chatter. And my first instinct was to just be like, that's no, well, I'm not even going down that road. I'm not even thinking that they're going to take McKenna. It's such a layup, especially for somebody who's coming in new to the job, like Chica and is embattled already.
Just do the layup and get a win under your belt. Right. Having said that, I take your point that it's not 0%. Now, it's worth noting, Gavin McKenna is not going to be going to the World Championships. That was announced yesterday and kind of lost in a lot of what else was going on, the drama of yesterday. Ivar Stenberg, we believe, will be playing for Sweden at the World Championships.
So, look, if Stenberg is like a standout playing against really, really good NHL players at the World Championships, could that shift the odds a little bit? Like, the legal situation with Gavin McKenna seems like it's not really going to be a thing, but you never know if that flares up or if the combine interviews don't go well. Like, I get that there is a path.
I don't think it's worth dwelling on too much. The San Jose part of it, I think, is at least...
real like that wouldn't shock me at all if they decide you know what we want the six foot four right shot guy and Keaton Verhoff like over over the undersized winger like that would not that that's not a reach that's not like a galaxy brain thing it might be galaxy brain thinking from San Jose but it's not like Canucks fans dreaming up this crazy cope scenario because they got the third overall pick I think that one is in play
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Chapter 3: How do the Canucks compare to the San Jose Sharks after the draft lottery?
And I think the right answer is, okay, well, why don't we let it play out, not rush this, try to build our blue line as affordably as possible without overcommitting in terms of term and money to fixing the thing. And we can come back and revisit this in December or January, right? Having sort of built a hedge position out.
And if we're ultimately launching a rebuild around Gavin McKenna, plus the assets we get back for Matthews and Nylander, that's not the worst place to land if this doesn't work. Like that's the right answer, I think. But you can understand why that's not like an easy sell for Chayka to the MLSC board.
Yeah, that's fair. I just think it's going to be I just think it's extraordinarily difficult to kind of zag in this situation considering where Jake is in.
But but once you once you really think through the conversation and how you'd have to frame the decision, like I think it's a 10 percent outcome. I don't think it's a 0%.
Sure.
All right.
And 10% is a lot higher than I would have had it this morning. So that's fair.
Yeah, I would, I would have said 10% and then I would have said the, you know, Verhoff or Reed over Stenberg is more like a 25 to 35%.
Yeah, that feels about right. That's about where I would have it for the Sharks as well. Okay, some other news from yesterday directly related to the Canucks. Jim Rutherford says he will be stepping down as president of hockey operations after the draft. Now, as your reporting suggested, that could even be faster depending on who they ultimately hire to fill out the Canucks front office.
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Chapter 4: How does the Canucks' draft strategy affect their roster construction?
And Friedman said, like, he keeps a low profile. This is obviously not a low profile position, right? Like, among NHL GM jobs, this is one of the most highest profile where you are expected to be a great communicator and speak to the public. I do wonder if... Would hiring a president who's going to do the forward-facing stuff or a VP or whatever be enough to kind of make that work?
I don't know the answer to that. My instinct is like maybe not.
Because Rutherford announcing that he's willing to step away on an expedited timeline has me wondering about – the sort of Johnson dynamics, right? Like, would you be able to make Ryan Johnson a president of hockey operations over a guy like Martin Madden? Would you be comfortable making...
You know what, like how do you structure it so that Madden doesn't have to do the public facing stuff, but is like your president is usually the guy talking. Like usually the top guy is talking, even if the guy underneath him is the real hockey decision maker a la Danny Breer and Keith Jones. So, or Don Waddell and Eric Tolsky, right? Like we see those, but you usually put the guy in the top job.
And if you don't, you end up sort of with awkward questions like you're dealing with on Chayka and Sundin.
Yeah, well, I mean, Chayka and Sundin, you could say, is the Keith Jones, Danny Breer thing, right?
Yeah, except that... it's like very clear that Sundean has some level of like veto authority. Yeah.
Or just like, I mean, it's an immense amount of soft power, right. That like kind of complicates things. Yeah.
As opposed to, as opposed to the Keith Jones, Danny Breer, like when they were introduced and they were just like everything we do, we'll do together. Right. And like people who like go in or around that team always say like, you never hear something from Danny Breer that doesn't come from like, they're always talking the same way. Yeah. Like, everyone gets the same answers from both guys.
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