Jake the JAG, and Representation in Hockey feat. Samantha | Power Of The Towel

After Game 4, there was a sense of doom and gloom surrounding this hockey team.

Heck, even early in the second period of Game 5 when the Blues had a 3-1 lead, you might have been crying in your beer thinking about the worst.

How things can change.

On the latest episode of Power of the Towel, we talked to Samantha from The Broadscast about the series and so much more.

So you’re saying there’s a chance

The Canucks still have a very good chance to win the series.

But the path to victory is clear. Markstrom will have to keep having terrific games, and they will have to strike on the power play. Five on five may be a struggle though — the Canucks just don’t have the same level of depth as St. Louis to dominate there.

Samantha and I both agree that the Canucks have played well throughout the totality of the series. I’m still saying Canucks in 7.

Jake the JAG

(Editor’s Note: Nick submitted this article prior to Game 5, but vacationing Beggsy was procrastinating, as per usual...)

I’m done with Jake Virtanen.

I was convinced that his style could translate well into the playoffs. He’s a good north/south skater, can lay the body, and has a good shot. His physicality would be a solid addition to the bottom six.

Well, he hasn’t done anything in the playoffs except for taking a penalty in overtime of game four, which luckily didn’t cost the Canucks. And maybe playing with guys like Brandon Sutter won’t help the offensive number at 5v5, but he hasn’t done anything on the power play either.

It’s time to face the truth Canucks fans — Jake Virtanen is what Bill Belichick would call a JAG. Just Another Guy. Bang average.

He’s like a lot of other bottom-six NHLer’s. He has some characteristics that will keep in the league, but some deficiencies that will keep him in that bottom-six role for as long as he’s in the league.

After 286 NHL games over the regular season and playoffs, the guy is what he is.

Broadscast & Representation

As we like to joke about on the Nucks Misconduct Network, the success of The Broadcast so far as bumped the network down from the 14th most popular Canucks podcast to 15th.

But it goes to show how underrepresented some fans of hockey feel they’ve been. As the target demo for a lot of sports — a twenty-something white male — I can take for granted how skewed the coverage is towards me, from the people covering it to of course the people playing the game.

And to the people getting mad at them online, get a life. Not everything in hockey has to be tailored towards yourself. As their podcast has shown, there’s a lot of people out there who feel they finally have something that speaks to them.