This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the SportsNet Radio Network.

Welcome back to the program. Glad to have you aboard today. Do not forget top of the hour. Normally, Greg Wyshinsky drops by on Wednesday. But why is he not available, Maddie? What's up with him? He said he needed to do another day this week. He didn't give me a reason. He said, oh, my God, I needed to do another day when I asked him about switching because we don't know what's happening tomorrow. Very good point. Okay, so Greg West Cheney stops by the top of the hour from ESPN and the drop. In the meantime, on the Vancouver Canucks page tonight, it's going to be a fascinating one. It is game for the Vancouver Canucks lead the series against the Edmond, Benison, Oilers, 2 to 1. Brendan, Batchler, Canucks, Radio, play-by-play voice. joins me now. Brendan, how are you today? I'm well. How are you, Jeff? I am well. Give us a sort of snapshot of where this Vancouver Canucks team is at right now.

Like we'll get the sort of, you know, the specifics of either, you know, the suspension and some of the play and players that have turned things around.

But give me like a vibe check here.

Like where is Vancouver?

I would imagine the confidence must be pretty high.

Where is this team at right now?

Yeah, being in the dressing room after practice yesterday, they feel pretty loose.

Like it's a casual group that seems very confident that is having a lot of fun right now, I think,

and has kind of taken on the identity of their goaltender right now in Archer Shilovs, too, who is pretty cool, calm and collected in spite of being just 23 years old and thrown into this spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But he's played great and the team seems to have a lot of confidence in him and confidence in the way they're playing right now as well. I want to get the Sheelops here in a couple of seconds because he's such a fun topic.

And by extension, we should probably talk about Ian Clark as well, the goalie coach,

who's been tremendous for this team. But let me ask you about Rick Talkett, because you talk about taking on the identity of people on the team. But I'll tell you what, I can't help but thinking, you know, as I watch this Vancouver Canucks team, you know, depth wise, they have Edmonton beaten.

Like they don't have the two, you know, nuclear missiles that Edmonton has.

I mean, Edmonton starts every, every game with the two best players in the game.

But there's a, like, there's like a work ethic and a combination of toughness and skill.

And you saw it on the opening shift in game three, where right away was like, okay, boys, how would I play this game?

You go play it that way.

Like that opening shift was like a Rick Tocket shift.

Like I'm looking from like 1986 in Philadelphia.

How much on this team do you look at and you say, you know what?

This is turning very much into a team that plays the way their coach played.

Yeah, absolutely.

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