Just one more sleep now until the lottery balls do their thing. We’ll leave others here at CanucksArmy to go through the many possibilities and probabilities for the Vancouver Canucks in Tuesday’s NHL Draft Lottery.

Just a reminder that while the Canucks do have the best odds, they do not have good odds. So they will definitely need Lady Luck to shine down upon them. To help you pass a little bit of time before the balls start bouncing around, we have another edition of the Monday Mailbag. Even though it’s been a couple of weeks now since the Canucks last played a game, you had many questions once again this week. So let’s jump in and try to provide some answers.

I shared my memories of John Garrett on Canucks Conversation last Tuesday and again on Friday’s episode of Sekeres and Price. So I would direct you to either of those shows to hear me tell my tales. Ultimately, my best memory of John Garrett was his laugh and his love of life. He brought joy to every broadcast and was terrific company to be around. Perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay Cheech is that I marvelled at his ability to treat everyone like a friend. I witnessed it countless times, dealing with security people and rink attendants on the road or in restaurants where he seemed to revel in small talk with servers he had never met and would likely never encounter again. He was blessed with the gift of putting people at ease. Anyone who ran into John in an airport, a grocery store, or at a hockey rink likely had that experience for themselves, whether they knew him as a hockey player, a broadcaster or were just drawn to his warmth and kindness. As his family so eloquently put it in its statement released over the weekend: ‘We should all be a little more like Cheech.’ I think those are incredible words to live by.

As well as Caleb Malhotra has performed in the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, I don’t think I’d pick him third overall. I fully grasp the Canucks absolute need for scoring help up front — especially at centre. But I still think I’d take the best player available with the third pick and, for me, that’s any one of the defencemen that have been near the top of the draft class all season. It’s hard to ignore a big, right-hand blueliner like Keaton Verhoff, but clearly Chase Reid and Carson Carels are in the discussion as well. Some will look at the Canucks’ roster and suggest they already have their future blueline in place. Once upon a time, the Anaheim Ducks surely thought Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale would be huge parts of their rebuild. The point is that what the Canucks have at the moment doesn’t necessarily have to be the core group they move forward with. Maybe a Verhoeff makes Tom Willander expendable at some point. Or maybe the Canucks deal Filip Hronek in a couple of years. This team is far from being a finished product, so it’s probably prudent for the Canucks to stockpile the best assets possible either for their own use or to address organizational needs via trade.

I’m not as high on Liam and Markus Ruck as many others. And that doesn’t mean I don’t like what I saw from them in Medicine Hat this season. I did. I just don’t subscribe to the ‘the Canucks had twins once, therefore they should do everything in their power to make sure they draft twins again’ theory. If it happens, it’s an incredible story, and there’s every reason to believe these guys could help the Canucks. But I wouldn’t be reaching over other prospects on my draft list to take a swing at landing the Osoyoos natives. That said, it’s hard to ignore guys who put up 108 and 104 points in the Western Hockey League this season. Some of their highlights were spectacular and eerily similar to the way Daniel and Henrik Sedin performed. There is so much variance among scouting services about where the Ruck brothers will go; it’s going to be fascinating to see if drafting both of them is even a possibility when the Canucks get to their second pick of the first round.

I’m going to say there is a non-zero chance Andrei Kuzmenko signs here this summer. Now 30, Kuzmenko missed the stretch drive with a torn meniscus, but returned to play one game in the playoffs. He hasn’t been anywhere close to the goal-scoring force that he was in his first NHL season with the Canucks. Then again, as you point out, Elias Pettersson hasn’t been the same since he had Kuzmenko on his wing finishing plays on the regular. On some levels, a reunion makes sense for both the player and the team. I don’t expect it to happen, but I can’t rule it out entirely. Kuzmenko is a pending unrestricted free agent, so we’ll see if there is mutual interest between the Russian winger and the Los Angeles Kings ahead of July 1st. If not, and Kuzmenko makes it to the open market, I could see the Canucks kicking tires on a short-term deal.

I was asked last week for a couple of names I thought the Canucks should chase in free agency. I said Michael McCarron and Jeremy Lauzon. I’m still skeptical that a last-place team should be looking to be big spenders this summer. First of all, the talent pool is relatively thin, and the Canucks don’t need to be big game hunters. They should be methodical in their approach and look to overspend on shorter deals. The money doesn’t really matter right now. But propping up the young players on the roster does. As for the second part of your question, the opportunity to play with a Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg might be intriguing to a free agent looking for a new place to play. But I doubt the Canucks will find top-end centres in free agency this summer, and both McKenna and Stenberg are wingers. So I’m not convinced that who the team drafts will really make much of an impact on the club’s approach to free agency.

The ‘slashing’ call on Garnet Hathaway midway through the second period of Saturday’s Game 1 between Carolina and Philadelphia was as weak a call as I’ve seen in these playoffs and maybe one of the weakest ever. Did Hathaway tap William Carrier on the pants with his stick? Absolutely. But there is no way that transgression rose to the level of a minor penalty. Referees need to have a feel for the game. Talk to the player. Warn him once. If he wants to test the officials’ limits a second time, then by all means put him in the box. But to that point in the game, there really hadn’t been a need to clamp down.

The game wasn’t terribly physical. It certainly wasn’t threatening to explode. I have no issue with officials issuing misconducts late in a game if the score is out of reach and players are simply message sending. That can get tedious, so I fully understand the thinking there. As for the landscape changing as games go along, that has always been an issue. Referees claim they don’t want to be a factor by putting a team on a late power play. But it stands to reason that they are a factor if they ignore a blatant penalty simply because it’s a close game in the third period. The rules are the rules. Just enforce them as they are laid out in the rulebook. What is considered a penalty in the first period should also be one in the third. Unfortunately, that is much easier said than done. And so the annual angst that accompanies playoff hockey persists. Refereeing at that level is a difficult job. But too often at this time of year, we’re all left talking about calls and non-calls rather than the incredible action the opening rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs present.