The Sheet with Jeff Marek
Stanley Cup Final Preview and Canucks Hire Malhotra ft. Jeff Paterson & Greg Wyshynski
02 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the biggest storylines heading into the Stanley Cup Final?
Greg Wyshynski is either at Game 1 or he's going to court. We're not sure. Welcome to The Sheets. This is Tuesday, June 2nd. Welcome aboard once again. Yeah, it's Game 1 today. Look who's at the Lenovo. Look who's at Lenovo.
Greg Wyshynski. You're looking live at the Lenovo Center. I got to go on ABC later today to talk about the joy that is the Stanley Cup Finals. So I decided to...
Chapter 2: How do the player comments impact the Stanley Cup Final?
We're a little suit and tie action. Normally, as you know, I go with the Tortorella-esque quarter zip with a tie. I think that's probably my best look. People say it's slimming. People being me. But here we go. Suit and tie Jones up in the press box. No, it looks good. Game one. Very excited.
Give us a little 360 tour there if you can. Who's around you? Corey Lavallette around? Where's Corey?
Nobody. I saw somebody doing a Victory Plus show down in the Mezzanine area earlier.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Very nice.
That was going on there. But as far as me being up here, I'm all about my lonesome. Uh, fun fact, as I found out moments before we did the show, the bathroom is about 17 miles down the hallway of the press box. Um, so I got my sprints in.
So you've tied it, you've tied it in a knot for the show. That's good. All right. So we'll have to make the dash. Okay. That's excellent. Um, you know, it's, it's game one and we should be talking about game one, but Vancouver had other ideas and now Colorado, uh, and Nashville have other ideas. Let's get to what's coming up on the program here today and address all of it on the program.
And here we go. Once again, the Blueprint is powered by our friends at FanDuel. Download the app today and play your game on FanDuel. He's live from the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. Greg Wyshynski from ESPN and ESPN.com is on the program. It is Tuesday, after all. We'll talk about media avails. We'll talk about Stanley Cup Final Game 1. We'll talk about NHL awards.
We will talk to Jeff Patterson of Rinkwide Vancouver about Manny Malhotra as the newly minted head coach of the Vancouver Canucks. Also, we should probably talk about a few things that you've been writing about lately, and we'll get there in a couple of seconds. But it looks like—and I'm a little bit confused—
The Colorado Avalanche have granted Nashville permission to talk to their general manager. What division do these teams play in, Greg? Same division. It's the same division. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but. We don't do this in the NHL now. There's no gentleman courtesy around any of this, Greg.
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Chapter 3: What developments surround Mitch Marner's future with the Maple Leafs?
The nerds won.
That's all. The nerds won. Take that, jocks. Get out of the locker, nerds. The point that I've been making about all of this, this is something that baseball went through 20, 30 years ago, where the philosophy of management changed from did you play to can you think. And it's just taken hockey because it's hockey and it's slow and it gets the things late. They just got there late.
And now it's more about can you think as opposed to did you play?
Chapter 4: Why did the Vancouver Canucks hire Manny Malhotra as their head coach?
And this is more evidence of it.
But memo to Ryan Getzlaff, Ray Whitney, all you ex-jocks looking to get your GM spots, get that Harvard MBA, baby.
You've got to learn math. You've got to learn math. Do it like Danny Beard went to Wharton. Like, okay, you're going back to school, guys. I know you all dropped out in grade 11 here in Kanakistan.
Just because you've got a shiny Stanley Cup ring and happen to have Wayne Gretzky's personal number, it doesn't matter. You've got to know math. To be a GM in this league now. Now I'm a Holtra. So I've been going back and forth on this a little bit because there's a part of me, like I said last night on Twitter, that is really happy with this hire. I think he's going to be a great NHL coach.
I think he's put the time in to be a good NHL coach. Wins the Calder Cup in his first year in the AHL. Only last two seasons there. But I love the idea of...
It being a package deal between him and RJ, the GM, the idea that they're sort of a package deal coming up together to try to fix this thing, I think is the cohesion between a coach and a GM, I think is something that's very underrated in this league. And the fact that they already have it baked in is important. But that said, I'm trying to temper this by not falling into the vibes trap.
Because, again, in stark contrast with the reaction that Toronto got with their hires, despite the fact that Matt Sundin was one of them, the Twins developing a culture...
malhotra being your head coach like these are all very good vibes and i know some people in vancouver who were basically looking to find a way to expunge the fandom out of their bodies when they were so upset with the canucks there are like all back in they're just all back in because of what they've done now with this off season to rebuild the vibes
Yes to all of that. Dubas with Sheldon Keefe was a successful American Hockey League combination. This is, again, nothing new.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Malhotra face with the Canucks?
I just love it for the fact that this is... And you actually heard the owner say the word rebuilding. When did you ever think you'd hear Francesco Aquilini say the word rebuild? Because when owners say the word rebuild or hear the word rebuild, they hear... Season ticket holders not renewing packages. That's what they hear.
But this is allegedly a team that is committed, and we'll see for how long, to doing this. And every single move seems to be, at least initially here, in service of that. So we'll see where it goes. Plus, I do think as well that if Vancouver wasn't going to move on Malhotra, somebody else was.
Absolutely. And I think teams are overly scared of rebuilds for no reason. Like, yeah, you're going to feel some temporary pain, but as long as you give people hope, they'll come to the games. As long as you're honest with them. You're honest with them. You need two things for people to not completely give up going to games and stuff. You need one.
Well, first off, some enticements would be nice if they ever wanted to gin up a few ticket packages that could help a family attend the game once in a while. But they have to have hope in the personnel that's in the pipeline, a high draft choice, young players, exciting players, what the next generation, the next wave will look like.
But they also have to have faith that the people running the team aren't going to screw it up. And I think that part of the rebuild is now in place for Vancouver, where you can be, if you're a Canucks fan, a lot more confident in what's coming next with the Sedins and Johnson and Malhotra in place than you would have been if Patrick Alvine was still there.
The other thing you do when you do a rebuild is you lean on the alumni. Put it this way. No one's retiring jerseys when the team's winning. You don't have to. The building's full. You retire jerseys when the team stinks to try to propagate. Let's just be honest about this. No one's doing jersey retirements when the team's about to set a record like the Bruins or the Habs in the 70s.
No one is retiring jerseys then because you don't need to sell the tickets. You retire the jerseys when the team stinks.
So for all of you Vancouver fans waiting for your gay Lume night, your time is now, baby. You might get it.
You might just get it here, folks. But no, but that's true. But again, I'll say this legitimately. Like from a business point of view, I've always maintained this. It is the smartest thing to do for business in the NHL to have a robust alumni.
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Chapter 6: How could Malhotra's hiring affect the Canucks' draft strategy?
And there's Dougie and there's Wendell and Dave Allitt. And like, you just do it. It's just like, it's just smart business to remind people of better times.
So that, that leads me to an interesting question. As I, as I sit here in the Lenovo center, we're getting there game one. We're getting there. We're getting there.
Uh,
That wasn't to say we weren't... I'm never going to complain about the tangents. No, the question is, will the Golden Knights have alumni? How will the alumni feel about being a Golden Knight alumni? If everyone leaves Vegas with a knife in their back, do you think Marc-Andre Fleury is coming back for, you know... Nate Schmidt night? Alumni night?
I mean, I guess he'll come back for a celebration of the cup win or whatever, but... I don't know. No, he won't be because he wasn't a part of it.
No, I don't think they're ever going to do Bruce Cassidy night. You're like, welcome back, coach. That's what I'm talking about. They're going to do that.
How many guys that are not there anymore that were there during some glorious runs to the cup final are willing to come back? Right? Come back to celebrate all of this. Do you think after this summer, Aiden Hill is going to be all about going back for a Golden Knights celebration? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.
Logan Thompson thrilled to be gone.
By the way, I talked to Aiden Hill at Media Day yesterday because everyone assumes he's going to be the next one with a knife in his back with the emergence of Carter Hart. There's a bug on my face. I evoked the name of Logan Thompson and I think part of him died as I did that. What did you say?
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Chapter 7: What are the key matchups to watch in the Stanley Cup Final?
I think... Taylor Hall is third, if memory serves. And then you kind of go from there. Obviously, you can't talk about the consummate without talking about Carter Hart and the fact that there isn't a lot of support for him right now, despite his numbers getting progressively better in the playoffs.
And I don't think that there's a way he wins this award, given all the baggage he's dragging with him. And we can talk about that after we talk to Jeff.
um but right now it's martyrs to lose if the vegas gold knights win and he has any semblance of an impact on the series i don't know if the people who write stories for a living are going to be able to not take the catnip that is much smarter playoff mvp you know what though it does wink at an even another story which is the con smith trophy itself you talked about the gm of the year being named after jim gregory i have a bigger problem with
con smith the person easily having a significant trophy named after him that is for another conversation though uh we okay real quick before we get the job like yeah i mean wayne gretzky is a single most famous hockey player in the last hundred years we don't have an award named after him name it after gretzky sure good with it fine no problem just um maybe that's for the next commissioner
There you go. All right, let's get the Jeff Patterson here from Rinkwide, Vancouver. He is one of the great authorities on everything Vancouver who now has a new head coach, and that is Manny Malhotra. I think, Jeff, a move that has shocked us all. Nobody saw this one coming. This was straight out of left field. No one saw Manny Malhotra taking over the bench for the Vancouver Canucks.
Your thoughts?
Well, I feel woefully underdressed, first of all, a guy in the middle now without the sports coat. I'm in the press box. No, no. Look, this is all about me. I'm the one that feels I should step out and grab one, but I won't. The other part is I like the segue here. You guys talking about championship trophies, and then you come to a guy in Vancouver. Not a lot of history and trophies out here.
Yes, their new head coach that was revealed by press release at 8.15 on a Monday night, the way that it's always done in professional sports. Whatever. I'm not going to hold that against them necessarily. But clunky because Ryan Johnson is in Buffalo at the Combine. And so I had to drop off a Zoom that he was doing.
And the press release said that Manny will make a public appearance here in Vancouver at some point later this week. So it could still be a few days before we hear from Manny. But yes, on the surprise front, absolutely none. And look, I do think that he's probably the right guy for the job at this moment in time with the 32nd place team. And.
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Chapter 8: How do the health statuses of both teams affect the series outcome?
It's interesting. It's interesting. It's interesting.
You know, I had a discussion with Eric Johnson yesterday on the Caps pod that I do, the Hockey Lifers. And one of the things that he talked about was, we talked a lot about teams that made him offers when he was a free agent, like Minnesota, he talked about Buffalo, where he ended up going.
And he mentioned, I think it was a two-year deal that Barry Trotz had offered him, that's some pretty good money too, to go play for the Predators. And he said, I didn't take it because I would have felt like I was betraying Colorado Avalanche fans. That I was going to play for a rival. Chris McFarland does not feel that way. Chris McFarland does not feel he's betraying Colorado Avalanche fans.
I'm not sure you understand the amounts that are involved in this decision here at that level. I would imagine that Bill Haslam's playing them well. Just bluntly? Yeah. I would imagine that he's getting paid really well. He's being compensated. He's being compensated. It's interesting Joe Sackick goes in there too because I would have looked at someone.
Now, first of all, that does indicate that Sackick has probably had more of a hand on the wheel than we've been led to believe. One, if McFarlane wants to leave and right away Sackick slides back into that role. Yeah. But. Yeah, I would agree with that statement. After all of this, the longest running GM search in NHL history. Chris McFarland. The one that nobody would have... You know what?
Jonah Siegel, Toronto Star. Well done. Because when he dropped that, everyone went, what? No one. People that have worked as insiders forever in this industry. No. Jonah from the Toronto Star.
Yeah.
Everyone's an insider.
Everyone's an insider. It also always has to have a Leafs tieback because I believe if I remember incorrectly, that tweet that Jonah put out said, Leafs fans won't like this, but... You know what?
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