The Canucks have the fewest losses in the Pacific Division and the 4th best winning percentage in the Western Conference. They’ve won 5 of their last 7 games and would be heavily favoured to take care of business against the Ducks in Anaheim on Tuesday night.
Which leads us to “Simmer’s Sunday 9” —
1) Some of the local media’s panties are in a twist nevertheless. Some of the comments and analysis are so far off base it’s astonishing. Not surprising given the fact that the expectation-bar was raised significantly with last year’s successes, and given the fact a handful of the folks yapping about it have absolutely no feel for the game.
While there’s plenty of talent here — AM650 morning show being a great example — in what ultimately is a small town market, a couple of the radio programs wouldn’t make it elsewhere on college stations.
2) Meanwhile, Brendan Batchelor is one of the top-three radio play-by-play guys in the National Hockey League. I’ve established this opinion by calling hundreds and hundreds of hockey games on TV and radio over the years and was blessed to grow up listening to Hall of Famers on both venues.
“Batch” takes a traditional approach, is on top of the puck at all times, and mixes in background information and history seamlessly. A listener is never lost in terms of the action in relation to the ice geography. The simple combination of breathing and speech can be a challenge given the pace, and his presentation from that standpoint seems effortless.
In a league that often de-emphasizes the importance of radio play-by-play, with local hires elsewhere seemingly made out of laziness or for plenty of the wrong reasons, the Canucks have it spot on with Batchelor.
Canucks fans are spoiled on TV and radio in terms of play-by-play.
By the way, Landon Ferraro is a nice upgrade in the colour commentator department.
3) Completely independent of the previous thought, “Batch” is the only broadcaster that hasn’t responded to requests to be on my Pacific Division podcast. As in crickets. Surprising considering we’ve never come close to having an ill word between us, it’s actually unfathomable that we would, but not surprising considering his obvious close relationship with the team.
One might recall they’ve banned me from the press box for 752 days now and have a PR director who’s lied about the reasons countless times. They actually still haven’t given a legitimate reason. More on new developments with this comically entertaining nonsense later.
Regardless, Batch gets a pass. Even if he wanted to, it wouldn’t be a very popular decision in the office if he popped on with me to talk pucks.
4) One of the biggest concerns right now for Vancouver is a topic we brought up more than once in the preseason on the aforementioned “Krackin’ Canuckleheads” podcast, and that would be blueline depth and mobility. I expected it to be an issue, but not so quickly. Then again, the sooner it’s addressed, the better off the Canucks will be come playoff time.
5) The other half of that Pacific Division (North) coverage involves the Seattle Kraken. Things are not all that rosie below the border at the moment.
With a 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Boston Bruins on Sunday, the Kraken have lost three in a row and haven’t scored a goal in more than 123-minutes. They’re two games below .500 and it’s not a team that wants to try to dig out from a large early-season point deficit. They don’t have the talent depth to do so.
The Kraken will try to right the ship on Tuesday night in Denver against a discombobulated Colorado Avalanche team that’s also lost three in a row.
6) Stat of the week, or one of them: With their 1-for-2 performance against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday evening, the Toronto Maple Leafs improved to 7.9% on the power play this season. Obviously they’ll pick up the pace, but before Sunday they were clicking just 3% of the time through the first eighth of the season. They’re still dead last in the NHL.
7) Jake DeBrusk scored his first goal of the season and his first with the Vancouver Canucks in the win over the Sharks on Saturday night. A notoriously slow goal scorer at the start of seasons, there were other reasonable factors this time around. Here is is talking about it …
8) Just below item number-9 you’ll find a recent example of one of the aforementioned podcasts. We spoke with Hockey Night in Canada’s and Sportsnet’s Louie DeBrusk about his son’s game, the Canucks potentially winning the Cup, and the Oilers’ issues. He also shared some fun stories.
9) You can follow Simmer on twitter/X @simmerpuck, which is the same name as our youtube channel. Please check out other videos and/or subscribe at simmerpuck. Vegas Golden Knights, Anaheim Ducks, Winnipeg Jets and Canucks and Kraken episodes coming up in the next few days.
Earlier Canucks:
— Last week’s Simmer’s Sunday 9: Canucks Streak, Demko’s Mystery
Enjoy the hockey action!!
