Daniel Wagner joins the show to talk his “bump” for Elias Pettersson, team expectations, and more: Canucks Conversation
1 month ago
On today’s episode of Canucks Conversation, David Quadrelli and Harman Dayal were joined by award-winning journalist Daniel Wagner, who had an interesting interaction with Elias Pettersson on Monday.
“I asked a dumb question, or rather, I asked a good question in a dumb way,” Daniel said of his moment with Pettersson. “That’s all that happened really. I was a little too blunt with my question for him. Basically, I said, ‘Hey, you stopped skating. Why aren’t you skating? Do you need a reminder to move your feet?’ At least that’s how it came off. What I was trying to get at is: sometimes we see elite players like Elias Pettersson stop moving their feet—why is that? How do you get back to a place where you’re moving your feet again? I was really trying to ask more of a process question, but instead, it came off as more of a ‘dumb reporter trying to tell the elite hockey player how to do his job’ [moment].”
Daniel moved on to discuss Pettersson’s bounce-back game against Buffalo, where he had two goals and an assist.
“Last night was a really good night for him. He was moving his feet,” Daniel said, joking that his comment to Pettersson was a potential spark. “I had a good conversation with Connor Garland about that process side of things—why players stop moving their feet and how you get back to that. He said in his experience, when he stops moving his feet, he’s overthinking things. I had a similar response from Rick Tocchet, where he was saying if you don’t know what you’re going to do before you get the puck, you’re not going to move your feet because you’re going to be thinking in that moment about what you need to do. With a guy like Elias Pettersson, he’s very smart and has more options available to him than any other player on the Canucks in my opinion, so maybe there is an aspect of overthinking.”
The guys then moved on to Daniel’s thoughts on the Canucks’ playoff odds.
“The expectations have to be kept in check while simultaneously [being] pretty high,” said Daniel. “They made a bold move trading away their first-round pick and a top prospect in Hunter Brzustewicz to get Elias Lindholm. That’s an all-in move. If you’re going to make that kind of trade and the moves that they have [made] to put this team together that’s at the top of the Western Conference, you have to expect them to win a playoff round, maybe two. That should be the expectation, and they’re capable of it. Pettersson is capable of taking over a game. J.T. Miller, when he’s on his game, is a force and is capable of taking over. You’ve got a guy like Quinn Hughes, who is right now the best defenseman in the NHL, he tilts the ice more than anyone else in the league compared to his team. When you’ve got players like that and a goalie like Thatcher Demko who’s going to be coming back and hopefully fully healthy and rested, they’re capable of winning one or two playoff rounds, maybe even further than that because they have the star power players that are capable of taking over games and a series. Demko is capable of winning a series. If any of those players go off, the Canucks could go really far. If they don’t, or if opposing teams keep them in check, I don’t know that the Canucks have the depth to make up for that. That’s where I stand right now.”
You can watch the full segment in the video below:
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