Game over. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to SDPN's Game Over Vancouver here on Saturday, December 23rd, with the Vancouver Knocks taking down the San Jose Sharks in a high scoring affair. 7-4, the Vancouver Knocks win. I am here to talk about the game, break it down for you, and talk about the Vancouver Knocks who are at the very top of the NHL table. We'll go into that after we break the game down and talk about where this team is and where they look to be for the remainder of the season. Because I don't think anyone thought at Christmas break this year, the Vancouver Knocks would be the top team in hockey. I didn't know if they'd be in a playoff spot at this time of year, but it's fantastic. Very happy to be in this spot while you're here. Make sure you hit the like button right below the stream. Make sure you hit the subscribe button right below the stream here on S. D. P. N. You can find me, Parker Spucks, also on YouTube and Twitter slash X slash whatever you want to call it.

It.

Should be a fun one. Christmas edition, I guess. I mean, the four of us did a Christmas episode about a week ago, but tonight you just have me riding solo. So let's start with a breakdown of this game. We'll go through everything that happened. You'll get my thoughts on the game. Then we'll go into some time on the analytics of this game, where the Knucks are at in the standings, which is obviously the top, but the teams around them, who's chasing them? And how does that look to shake out the rest of the season, like I said earlier? And then we'll go into some chat questions before we wrap up tonight as we get to Christmas Eve tomorrow morning. So let's get started on this one. The Vancouver Knocks started out the scoring early, and it's Andre Kuzmenko. Healthy scratched a couple of games in a row. Of course, he was Healthy scratched a little bit before. He's not in the walk. It's good books coming into this one. And what does he do? He just goes out and he scores. Minute 34 into the game. It's Elian Makev leaving a little drop pass on the zone entry for and he just rips a shot.

And this is the 39 goal score we saw last year, Andre Kuzmanko, right? We expect him to be a guy who can finish, a guy who can get pucks on net, a guy who can drive some offense.

And.

That's what we saw tonight, at least, especially in the first period. So Kuzmanko opens the scoring with that nice risker a minute 34 in. And then the Knaks get their first power play of the game. And this is one of those things where you hate to see if you're a fan of the team that takes this penalty. Penaly is in the offensive zone. Always something you never want to do because you're just taking chances away. It's not preventing a goal against. Mike Hoffman cross-checks Quinn Hughes in front of the Knux net. Just in the back, Hughes goes down, ref puts the arm up. So the Knux set up on the power play. And about a minute and a half into the power play, the last gas for the first unit, J. T. Miller gets the pass to start scaling downhill in the left wing like we see him do so often. And he just fires the buck right at Kuzmenko's stick. It's a perfect set play. And with how dangerous J. T. Miller is, skating down that left wing, what do you do to defend this? Because a third of the time, he rips a shot that is hard to save for every goalie out there.

Sometimes.

He finds Brock Bessar sitting back door for a tap in. And sometimes he goes for the tip play. And this time, he went for the tip play. Kuzmenko gets a piece of it, tips it past Blackwood. And it's 2-0 early in this one, two goals for Andre Kuzmenko. And we're on Hattie Watch seven minutes into this game. It doesn't happen because Kuzmenko is not the guy to go out with the net empty, of course. But a great start for the Knicks. And I'm getting 10-1 flashbacks. It's in my head. I'm like, Oh, are we going to have one of those nights? Not really. Seven's good, but 10's better. The Sharks do get one back, though, six and a half minutes to play. It's a three-on-two rush. Anthony de Clair's shot just goes off of Connor Garland, and then it looks like actually, Granland did get a piece of it upon further review. So Granland tips it. And it was a low shot, and then Granland's stick was just there, and it hit his stick and did a little bounce and then went up, I think. I don't know the physics of this one. But essentially, it was a low shot.

It got tipped by one hand on the stick, and it just took a weird hop and went over the shoulder of Demco to make it to one. And then three minutes after that, you have Thomas Hurtle tying it up. And this was tough one for Elias Petterson. And really this the Elias Petterson group, right? Petterson, Kuzmenko specifically on for both goals for and the first on for both goals against in the first as well. Petterson fails to clear. Hurtle beats Tyler Myers to the rebound. Have you heard that one before?

Tries to go top shelf and Demco sells out for the high shot and Hurdle just heals it. And so there's no loft on it. There's no flex to the stick. There's nothing to elevate the buck. It's mostly a fan. And it just slides right through the five-hole of Demco, which is wide open because he sold out completely for that high shot. So it's 2-2. And you think, Oh, a four-goal first period. It must have been action-packed back and forth, fun hockey. Shots were five to five in the first period. So no, not really. Analyticsally, expected goals were 0.44 for the Knucks, 0.51 for the Shark. So expected to be, on average, less than one or just around one goal in that period, just under one expected goal in that period. We got four.

So.

We get at least a little bit of excitement. So we go to the second period of this game. Knock get an early power play. It goes absolutely nowhere. There's a struggle set up and no real dangerous chances. But right as that penalty expires, Neels Oman just drives the net at the whistle. He gets shoved. Joshua doesn't like it. And then Joshua hits the guy back and Dakota Joshua takes a penalty. So the Knocks go to the penalty kill. And Joshua gets a pass on this one. He went for the shove. He went high, which was like, it's a penalty. I get why it's a penalty. I'm okay with Joshua doing it because he draws so many more penalties that if he's going to take the occasional one, it's okay.

And.

Then as this penalty expires, the Knocks do a good job of killing this off.

Teddy.

Blueger just bats a buck down that's getting played back to the Knocks zone at center ice, and it springs a two on one with him and Neels Oman. Teddy Blueger, for being a third slash, fourth liner when he was brought in to this team. The hands on this guy are not bad. I mean, he goes in, he fakes the shot. He's a lefty going in on the right-hand side. So he's got the buck towards the middle of the ice. And he fakes the shot. And then as the defender is going down to lay out to block the pass, he toe-drags around the defender, backhand pass to Neels Oman, who makes no mistake for his second of the year. My botch for project boy, Neels Oman. Yeah, he's not missing that one. So he buries that to make it three to two, six minutes or so into the second period. And then right after, Dakota Joshua, who I was just said draws a bunch of penalties, draws a penalty, gets high stick. Elias Patterson gets robbed on a one-timer on this one, sprawling Blackwood save. And then right as this PowerPlay expires, so it's not a PowerPlay goal, Ian Cole from the point, just fires a shot.

Justin Bailey's stick, he's standing high slot like this, and it goes off of the blade of his stick to redirect, and then it goes off the stick of Sam Laffordie to redirect again. I mean, what are you going to do if you're the goalie there? You're McKenzie Blackwood and you just sit there like, one tip is hard enough. Two tips is impossible. You just got to hope it hits you. And it didn't. So Sam Laforty gets his ninth goal of the season. Ian Cole still looking for his first as a Knuck. That one is not it. But it's 4-2, Vancouver, and they don't give this lead back, thankfully, like they did. It looked like they might, but they didn't. So eight and a half minutes into the second period, Knucks have a two-goal lead back. Then, Sharks answer about two and a half minutes later. And you're sensing a pattern, right? And the Knaks have been doing this quite a bit lately where they get these leads. And then they just sit back as Zetterland.

Gets.

His ninth of the year off of a really nice play from Ferraro. Ferraro comes in on the rush. He does a little 360 spin pass. Neels Hoaglander tries to put the stick flat on the ice to block this pass, which works if it's close to the blade of the stick, or it works if the buck is on end. Because what happens is you put your glove down to the ice to put your stick down flat on the ice. Well, your fingers of your glove, they're thicker than the buck is. So there's still some elevation on the stick. The buck slides right under and Xedilin scores to make it 4-3.

And it's about nine minutes to go in the second period. Then Teddy Blueger gets a hooking penalty, and it's looking like the sharks might tie it up. Zedilin hits the crossbar on this one, to cut a Joshua. Again, what an up and down game for him? He scores in the third and he took that penalty. He drew a penalty. And this one, he tries to make the extra play in his own zone. He thinks he's on a breakout with Patterson, but Patterson is just going to trail off. And Joshua just taps it over to nobody. And then the sharks come right back in and Zedlin hits the crossbar. So lucky in this one that it stays four to three. And then Heronic takes a penalty. And this is a bad call. I think him and Declare cross paths and run into each other and Declare goes down and Heronic doesn't. So they call Heronic for interference. I didn't love the call. And then we get Myers and Patterson shorthanded on two on one. Meyers couldn't get the ball across to PD, and then Patterson on the rebound got robbed. And then right after the penalty kill, there's a minute left in the period.

Knucks come in on a four on two. And this third line just continues to roll. They come in. It'sokay, it's a triangle as they come into the zone. Let's say the net is up here as they're coming in, the three of them, you get a... I don't know why I'm trying to diagram this thing out. They come in as a triangle, right? Two guys forward, Garland's the trailer. Blueger leaves for Garland and then darts straight forward and essentially takes his defenseman out of the play. He's just skating. He's just driving the net. And then Garland can slow down. There's no one really on his tail. So he can create that separation. And that's the best thing you can do on a three-on-two, right? If you're all on the line, one of your players isn't useful. But you get in a triangle, and you got a guy you can drop it to or play it across, and there's just more passing options. So you go for the drop, Garland has the trailer, has the buck, and he makes this slick little no-look pass to the code of Joshua. And Joshua is not missing right now. He gets his ninth of the year on a quick shot to make it five to three in the last minute of the second period.

That's one of those back breakers. You're about to go into the intermission down one goal if you're the sharks. And it's like, Hey, we can go back. We can tie this thing up in the third. And then now, you just got twice as hard with 45 seconds to go in the period with Josh who was scoring that goal. So it's a tough one. So we go to the third, sorry, second period. Shots were 11 tonine in favor of Vancouver. Expected goals 1.44 for Vancouver to 1.06 for the sharks. High danger chance is 6-2 in favor of Vancouver. That's in all situations with the sharks having a couple of power plays. They have three power plays, I think. Might have only been two. Either way, the Cuducks were dominant in this period. And the big thing that I want to mention because the shots in this game end up being 26-25. The shot attempts were 65-42 in favor of Vancouver. There's a ton of blocks on the San Jose side, but we'll get to that a little bit more later. So on paper, pretty even period. But analytically, the Cuducks were the better team and on the score sheet, the Cunocks continue their second period dominance, and they pick up a two-goal lead going into the third.

Cunocks get an early power play, they do nothing. And then about 10 and a half minutes to go in the third is a pretty slow start to the period. Thatcher-demco comes up huge. Grandland gets a rebound, Demco sprawls to make the save. Then the rebound comes to the point and Demco makes a really nice glove save. It was one of those glove saves where Demco so understated with the glove. And after Luango Night last Thursday and seeing all the highlights of Luango making a glove save just like this one and doing a full windmill and sitting back with the buck as Luango would do.

Demco.

Doesn't do that. He just grabs it and holds it. But it was a great save that he's not going to get a lot of credit for because he's not that flashy. And so that keeps it a two-goal game. But then the sharks do get within 1:6:44 to go in the third. It's just a standard play. Face-off win, the buck gets thrown at the net, Demco stops the shot. The rebound goes to McDonald, who I had never heard of. Who's this guy? Jacob McDonald, defenseman, 30-year-old defenseman who's played 117 career games. I don't know why he's there to clean up the rebound, but he was. So he makes it 5-4, and then a little bit of life for San Jose. And the Knucks have already blown one-two goal lead in the first period, and it looks like they might do it again. But the Knucks, just two and a half minutes later, shut that down. And this is a face-off win by J. T. Miller, which we'll get to J. T. Miller's face-off performance tonight. Miller wins the draw back to Quinn Hughes. He takes a shot and Pewes Soter is like five feet away from where the shot is taken, maybe four feet away from the path of the buck.

And he just reaches way out and just tips it down. Five-hold, unreal play, unreal tip by Pewes Soter. Soter now has six goals on the year. He's just played 21 games, so he's on a 22, 23 goal pace if you were to have played the full 82, which, of course, he didn't. So, yeah, he's missed a third of the games, more than a third of the games. And he's got six goals, which is good for him. And then Blackwood to the bench with 2-13 to go. And the Knucks, honestly, fantastic job in this six-on-five. They shut everything down. San Jose gets no opportunities. And then with about 13 seconds to go, Quinn Hughes at his own blue line, doesn't try to shoot it through, guys. He just lobbed it over the heads of everyone, lands right in the crease and rolls into the net. And it's 7-4 just like that. The Knucks get their win. And how many wins is that on the year? Let me get the number right before I just say a wrong number. Their 23rd win of the year in 35 games. I mean, it's unreal, right? The Knux won 38 games last year.

They were only 15 wins away from tying their win total last year, and were about a third of the way through the season. More than that. Two-fifths, 40 percent-ish. Either way, though, the Knucks are on a tourid pace, which is fantastic. Let's go to my thoughts on the game, my pluses, my minuses. I'm going to start with the negatives because I'm going to transition the pluses into everything else. By the way, all of you in here, thank you for joining. Make sure you hit that like button. I'm sure this has an update because it says three on my screen. That doesn't make sense. Let's hit the like button and hit the subscribe button while you're here on SDPN.

Let's.

Start with the minuses.

Clearing.

The zone on the Penaly Kill. I think they thought it was the sharks and got a little bit fancy with it. They had these opportunities to just clear the buck out of the zone. And that Joshua play that I mentioned just passing it over. But they struggled to get the buck out on the PK a handful of times tonight. It didn't matter, Knux go three for three on the penalty kill. That's great. But I think that needs to step up a little bit. I didn't love Tyler Meyer's game tonight, to be frank. There was a few instances that were dodgy, and there was one shift in the third, not the one that they got scored on, but he was up for a minute and a half. And instead of going to the bench, he stayed on, gave up the buck in the corner, and then Demquit to make a big save. Just things like that. They need to get cleaned up and against a better team than the Sharks and a nine-win San Jose team might get punished a little bit more for that.

Kodox shouldn't be allowing four goals to San Jose. I mean, they only allowed 25 shots. And this is a PDO nightmare of a game, right? Eleven goals on 51 shots. The goaltending is just dead. 800 save percentages all around pretty much.

But.

Yeah, you can't be allowing four goals to the sharks, right? You've got to clean things up a little bit. And sure, one was a tip and rebounds, but things got to get cleaned up. Demco, for how good he's been this year, he's had some off nights. That's been his MO. Demco doesn't really allow 2-3 goals very often. It's either he shuts everything down and it's zero or a one, or he allows four or five. So when Demco is on, he's on. And luckily for the Canox, Demco has a bit of an off night, allowing four goals on 25 shots. But the Canox outscored that problem because the Canox scored seven goals on 26 shots. So it's okay. No harm, no foul. But yeah, they need to clean that up a little bit. And my last negative on this game is it really feels like the Knucks aren't playing the full 60 minutes very often. Not very often in general, but the last couple of weeks, right? I think back looking at some of the games here, like this one, they score the two goals and then they allow two back, right? They don't keep the foot on the gas and they let up at times.

I mean, the Stars game was a good example, right? They get beat late. That wild game was an example. The Devil's one is the one that I'm still traumatized by when they came back from that lead and then gave up, essentially. So that's something just they need to clean up. But my pluses list is larger. Number one, the return of Andre Kuzmenko. Was he unbelievable tonight? No. He scores the two goals, though. And you look on the statue, he's a minus two, right? That's unfortunate. And he played 15 and a half minutes, though. He was not the low minute man. That would be Sam Laforty at 9:10.

So.

The minus two isn't great. But were any of the goals against really on him? No. And then, yes, Elias Patterson, two goals to assist. He was also a minus two. Sorry, not two goals to assist. Two assists is what I meant. The columns moved over. So with two goals, Patterson with two assists, both of them being minus twos.

I don't.

Think Cusmenko was that bad tonight, though. I thought he was fine. I thought Patterson was a little bit worse. So his return, that was nice. Teddy Blueger on the penalty kill, I want to give a shout out to. He was fantastic. I mean, he springs that goal at the end of that one penalty on that nice little pass over to Nielz Oman. He was just really good on the PA. Just breaking plays up, clearing things out nicely. Noah Julesen gets a big plus for me. And it's not just for tonight, although this was really culminated with a minute to go, a minute and a half maybe. He lays that really nice hit on McHale Grandland. Who went and challenged him? Was it Declare? Declare, I think, went after him after the whistle, and it was a perfectly clean, great body check. Just stepped up, shoulders to the chest. Perfect. Julesen with Ian Cole, they've been settling in. Noah Julesen, for how much I disliked his play early in the season has filled out that Carson Sushi hole pretty well, especially in the last week or two. So good on him. Hopefully, he can keep that up after the break.

Quinn.

Hughes with that Empty Net Goal ties the record for most multipoint games by a defenseman in Knox history. He has 68 in his career already tying Alex Edler. So he might have that on his own by the new year. I mean, that would just be the Flyers game. But within the first week of January, he probably has that record to himself.

And.

Then my big plus of the night, and I took the note maybe a little bit early, I want to see if it changed at all. This isn't going to tell me. Let me see. 19 out of 24 is 79. So we must have lost a face-off after because he ended the night with 74-1. So either way, I'm going to say J. T. Miller, I'm going to assume it's 19 of 25 face-offs that he won tonight. That is unbelievable. 19 and six in the face-off circle. It's the most wins he's had in the season, 74 % in the face-off circle.

And.

It led to that one goal, that Pew Suder goal, just dominant, dominant in the face-off circle as he has been quite often in his career. And then, of course, the biggest plus of the night, the absolute biggest plus of the night. That's the standings, folks. Take a look at the standings, and you will see that the Vancouver Knucks have more points than any team in the League. And sure, we can go down the point differential route, but it's Christmas, so let's have some positivity. Maybe we shield our eyes. And if we can believe in Santa Claus, we can believe in the absolute value of points being more value than point percentage. 49 points in 35 games for the Knocks so far this year. That is a 115 point pace. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. 23, nine, and three. The only team with a better points percentage is the New York Rangers who have played three fewer games and have two fewer points because they've been playing quite well lately. But that's for the Knocks. It's seven, one, and two in their last 10, right? They're collecting all of the points. They get six out of a possible eight points on that road trip.

They get two points tonight.

They.

Are just rolling. The Kings have 42 points. They're third in the Pacific. But let me pull up the old standings machine here and go by points percentage. Conference, points percentage. And that has... Yeah, the Knocks and the Kings are both at 700 in points percentage, so they are tied for the top of the West. Vegas is down to 671. Knocks have two points on them, and that is two points of absolute value because Vegas has played the same number of games. I think they lost tonight.

But.

The NHL website is being absolutely terrible right now. They lost 4-2 to the Panthers and got absolutely dominated. Shots were 42-25. So we love to see the Golden Knights struggling. We almost had the lead grow on the Dallas Stars, but then they scored two goals in the last 13 seconds of that game to go from losing to getting two points. So that's unfortunate. But in the standings, the Knucks have 135 goals more than anybody, and it's not even really that close. Detroit has 121, Colorado has 125, Vegas has 122, but the goal differential of 46 is far and away the best in hockey. The Rangers, who have the best point percentage in the League, they have a goal differential of 19. Like, barely 19. They won 23 games. It doesn't even add up. 19 goal differential, Cuckucks have 46. The second best goal differential in hockey is the Kings with 34, and the Sharks are now at minus 67. So a tough night for them. So as we go into the holiday.

Break.

I mean, who saw this coming? Who saw the Vancouver Knocks being at the very top of the table in basically every metric except the one that really matters, points percentage. But second, tied for second? I mean, I'm not going to complain about that. That is unbelievable. And as things shake out right now, if the Knox can find a way to hang on to this for 47 more games, and I'm not saying they will, I mean, are they going to make the playoffs? Yeah. Coming into tonight, as per the athletics model, the Vancouver Knox had a 96 % chance of making the postseason, so they will be a playoff team, basically without a doubt. But man, you just look at these numbers and it doesn't feel real to open up NHL. Com, click on League, and there's an orca whale right on the top of those standings. It's crazy. It is crazy the turnaround that this team has seen. And it's crazy how this has come from so many different factors, right? It's not like the Knux went out and made a big splash, right? Sure, they got rid of Horvatt and brought in Hironik. That was the one big move.

The rest of it's just been good depth and chemistry and people working together, right? The Knucks have one of the best goal tending tandems in hockey right now, probably top three with Boston and Vegas, I would say. And maybe the Rangers, they're top five goalie tandem. That helps. You've got Elias Petterson, who's not playing his best hockey, and he's over a point of game. You've got J. T. Miller playing fantastic. You've got Quinn Hughes being one of the best defensemen in hockey. You've got Brock Besser who went from struggling for the last five years to now being number two in the League in goals. Behind Matthews, who won't stop scoring. Is Besser going to win the Rocket? No. Austin Matthews is on a tear.

But is.

Besser going to score 40? Probably. And that's fantastic. And do the Knucks have one of the best third lines in hockey? It sure seems that way, right? Connor Garland for being the analytical darling that he has been. And now I can go back and reference my video that I made of the Knicks should not trade Connor Garland. How good does that look now with him playing with Joshua and Blueger? Because that third line can go out there. They can get a bunch of ice time. Let's see how much ice time they had tonight. Let's see, box score. Garland played 16 minutes. Blue group played 16 minutes. Joshua, they all played 16 minutes tonight.

And.

Those were big minutes. And they dominated those minutes. They were each a plus two in this game. Yep, they were each a plus two in this game. And if I go on to the Knucks on ice standing, let's see who were the best performers tonight by expected goals. At five on five, Noah Julesen is far and away your MVP with a... Sorry, I lost it here. Five on five, expected goals percentage. Noah Julesen had an expected goals percentage while he was on the ice of 95 and a half %. Sam Laherty, 94 and a half %. Nielz Oman, 94 %. Because when those three players were on the ice, there was zero expected goals. 0.01, 0.01, 0.03. Those three players absolutely shut it down tonight. Connor Garland at five on five. Connor Garland, Dakota, Joshua, Teddy Blue were all next to each other all around 70 % for expected goals percentage while they were on the ice tonight. That's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic. And then at all situations, I'm sure it even gets better.

Yeah, at all situations, Connor Garland is number two.

Analyticsally, that line is fantastic. On the ice, that line is fantastic. Man, if you can have a third line like that. It's so hard for me to start looking at this team as a contender just because historically, they haven't been, and it's such a weird, hard transition from missing the playoffs all these years to being top of the league. But every year we get into the playoffs and the top few teams have this third line that comes out of nowhere and dominates. You think back to the guys like Tom Wilson in Washington's Run. You look at guys like Brandon Hagle. These guys who are who fly under the radar and then become heroes in the playoffs. This third line that the Knocks have is exactly that line, right? That's a line that you can see going out and winning a playoff game for this team. And I think that's awesome. It's very fun. We're about the 30-minute mark. So that's my thoughts on everything. So now we'll go to you, the people. Folks, if you want to get some questions in for me, we'll take about 10 minutes here to answer a few of those while I wait for those to pile in to the 130 of you in here.

Thank you very much for joining me. Make sure you hit that like button while you're here. Make sure you hit subscribe to SDPN while you're here and maybe give me a follow on Twitter @parkarspucks. We're trying to jump those numbers up a little bit. Let me pull up the stream. First question that I will take, I'm going to scroll up a little bit first to see if there's any that I should grab from higher up. I don't think so. So let's go down to this one from Last Resort 3-1-8. They ask, When Sushi is back, do we sit Myers instead of Julesen? Myers is flubbing the buck or Myers is flubbing the buck led to the face-off that led to the Shark's fourth goal. His mistakes are starting to pile up again. This is an interesting one to me because Tyler Myers, how many minutes did Tyler Myers play tonight? I think that's a crucial question. He played 18 and a half minutes, so he is sheltered. Zadov and Julesen East were in the 16 range, quote, played 19. And then, of course, Hughes and Heronic were higher. This one's an interesting question because to me, Julesen is worse than Tyler Myers in general.

But right now, Julesen is playing better than Tyler Myers. Tyler Myers had this one to two week period where he played 15 minutes a night, which is what he played tonight in a sheltered role, and he was very good. Now, it was a sheltered and it was less value, ice time, and yada, yada, yada. But he showed some good stuff there. But his lows are low. He does cause some harm to the team. So when Susey is back, obviously, he will draw in. The thing is, I think Julesen is the guy that comes out. Unless there's some really bad game from Tyler Myers right before Susey comes back and Myers is deserving of scratch. I wouldn't hate it as an idea, though, because if you can give that a test drive, right? You can say, All right, Susie is back. We've got everyone healthy. Let's sit Myers out. Let's see how they do. How expendable does Tyler Myers get if that goes well? And I think that's something that could be really valuable for the team. So I like your idea. And Fangrilla asks, How would you change the deal pairings of the Sousie returns?

I don't really want to go into the pairings because that gets messy. Let's say in this hypothetical, you keep Julesen in there. You keep with Cole.

And.

Then you would, I guess, put Sousie with Zodorov potentially and then leave Hughes and Heronik together. Because Hughes and Heronik are going to stay together.

Myers.

And Zodorov will stay together unless Myers is the one coming out of the lineup. And then I guess Susie would go with Cole. So we go back to what we're used to, but with Zodorov plugged in instead of Jules and slash, Freedman in that spot. Richard Brock says, What or who can the Canyaks add at the deadline? Do they need to add? It depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to be a really good hockey team that probably finishes second in the Pacific, maybe third if Vegas and L. A. Go on a run, the Knocks could very realistically finish in any spot between first and third in the Pacific right now, I would not be surprised. I'm actually curious. I had the athletic thing open. They do a thing based on percentage chance of each spot. They have the Knocks most likely to finish third. They have Vegas and LA projected two points higher than them, but it's like 106, 106, 104. It's one game swing, right? Tonight, that might change it back to even because this is taking into account. It's essentially even split chances of first, second, and third because of a toss-up between Vegas, LA, and Vancouver, and then Edmonton trying to claw their way back, of course.

So do they need to add? I mean, if you're content with being top three in the Pacific, no. If they want to actually contend for a Stanley Cup, they could add, right? I think more defensive depth would be nice. Very nice to have. A Myers replacement potentially, like an upgrade there would be nice to have.

And maybe.

A little bit, I don't know, another piece upfront to just shift everyone down. They don't really have many holes right now, but if you can add someone in the top half of the lineup and shift everyone else down, it just makes all your other lines better, too. So they need to add? No. Will they? I think so, especially if they keep this up. Sharon asks, If you could have a wish list for Sanda, what would you ask for? And then in brackets, top six forward, top six defense, or other.

Honestly.

It would be a.

Defenseman.

Right? And just to allow you to pull Myers out, because that's the thing, right? If Sushi comes back and is healthy, you're usually going to have one defenseman injured most of the time. But if Julesen is now someone you're comfortable with in a top six role defensively, like in a mainstay defensive role.

If.

You're able to bring in one more defenseman, that makes Tyler Myers expendable. That makes the Tyler Myers cap hit, easy to take off, like not easy to take out the books. It's hard to move, but it makes it so you can take it off the books and not be worried about losing a player that can eat 19 minutes a night on D for you. So if you could add a defenseman and get rid of Myers and maybe use that money to add more, that would be my wish.

It's.

Weird thinking about buying, though. It scares me. But let's have some fun, right? When your team is this good, that's what the draft picks are for, right? That's why you have that capital. Let's ride. Let's have some fun. I'm tired of looking forward to prospects way down the line. What apparently all you have to do is go and just be smart with your money and pick up guys like Suder, Blueger, Sushi, Cole, guys like that. Just keep adding those guys every year and you're fine, right? Oh, man, the whole thing just shifted. Oh, where was I? Oh, no. Okay, I found it. Just the chat just skipped down to the bottom. Cordell asks, How does the trade market treat our club? Assets are better used now given our place with talent. Oh, I'm struggling to understand the question. As in do they have the ability to get good value is how I'm going to answer this question. Can the Knucks get good value for improving their lineup? I think so. I mean, we saw Patrick Alvine's move for Zodora. That was cheaper than I thought it would be. It's not like Zodora has been a world beater.

He hasn't been fantastic. He's been okay. He's been fun to watch at times. He'll lay a big hit, which is great.

But.

Yeah, I think are going to be in an okay spot. The flat cat makes things tricky, but it seems like this management group is creative enough to take advantage of situations as they arise, right? Being able to get rid of Pavilion right after the debacle in Chicago. And then using that freed up cap space to not have to retain anything or to not force Calgary to retain anything on Nikita Zadorov to allow them to come here, right? They jump on these opportunities as they arise. They're not hesitant to do those things. I think that's very advantageous. Antagonus says, Are you opposed to a trade for Jake Gensil? Asking price is a first and a prospect. Usa at the end of the year, 29 years old, might be risky. Oh, it's the epitome of risk, right? That is potentially... He's lining up for his big contract, right? He makes $6 million going into this offseason. He's been a point-per-game player his entire career. He's going to get paid. Jake Enzel is going to get paid. He's going to get seven years from somebody, six or seven years, probably somewhere maybe $8 million a year, maybe more.

Who knows? The Knocks aren't really in a great spot to give up that money, right? They don't have that money to give up. So if you're making that move, is it a pure rental for Jake Gensel? Because if that's the case, I don't think I'm there yet on this team. Maybe by March, I am. Or whatever the deadline is, late February, early March. Maybe by then, if this team is still first in the League, then I guess why not? Why not sell the farm and go after a cup, right? And man, that would be fun to watch. But yeah, it probably would be a pure rental at that point. And that's a bit scary.

First.

And a prospect, I don't care about any of our prospects particularly much. The first part of it, I mean, hey, where's that first going to be right now? Is that going to be between 25th and 32nd overall? I might do it. I wouldn't do it today. But if this team is still rolling, and in February, March, that might be a trigger I'd pull. Might be. All right, we'll take a couple more here. I said we go 10 minutes, been about eight. So let's do something here. Casey asks, Did Suder have such good hands last season or something just clicked on her tocket? Pew Suder seems like the prototypical Rick-to-quit guy. What did he do last year? Did he score? He scored a decent amount, right? He scored 14 goals in the last three years. But his first year in the League, the bubble year, he had 14 goals in 55 games, right? He was on a 25-goal pace. He's got decent hands. He can score. That's never really been an issue with his game. He's a defensive forward who has that slight bit of offensive upside that every few games, he will put on. So I don't think anything special is happening here.

I think he's genuinely just a really good hockey player that's probably undervalued at 1.6 million. Everything skipped away again. Let's see, a couple more here. D. E. L. Says, Would you swap Nielander for Patterson? I would not. Just the center value alone is big and Patterson has these slump waves. But man, when we get to playoff time, Alias Petterson is a guy that is going to be a weapon in the postseason, right? I mean, we saw it in their one postseason run. He was pretty good. I mean, he was no Bo Horvath in that run. But he just strikes me as that playoff mentality of just being an absolute killer. So that's what I want to see.

And.

I think that's... Dorothy Neutel asked if I could give the third line a nickname, what I am. I have no good ideas. There are some bad ideas out there. I'll tell you that. Every idea I've seen so far has been bad.

I.

Will do some brainstorming over the Christmas break and see if I come up with something because that would be a cool thing to be able to take credit for. But I think we're at about that time. It's 10:30, we're 40 minutes in. There's 170 in here. I hate to leave you all, but I think it is about that time that we should wrap it up. So I will say, I guess it's just me. I know Clay is in the chat as well. But on behalf of the four of us, myself, Clay, Kaya, and Sam, happy holidays, everyone. Merry Christmas. Enjoy the holiday break.

We.

Look forward to coming back, I guess, in the new year. The Cuckucks will be one game before that. I'm not doing that one. So I will see you all in the new year. If you missed any part of the show, you can rewind back to the beginning or find on your favorite podcast platform. Make sure you hit like and subscribe to SDPN. You can find me, Parker's Pucks, on YouTube, Parker's Pucks, Twitter slash X, Parker's Pucks. Just look it up. It'll be there. And yeah, other than that, thank you all very much for joining us over the course of 2023. We'll be back better than ever in 2024. As we follow this Vancouver Cocks Hockey team that is somehow the best team in the NHL? Maybe worse than the Reinders, but best in goal differential. And that's what I'm going by. Anyways, that's all. Have a good night. I'll see you next year. Game over.