Ryan Biech is in the house! Or rather, I'm in Ryan Biech's house. The point is, I am joined on the PITB Podcast by Ryan Biech, prospect analyst for Sportsnet 650 and Canucks writer for Canucks Army, The Athletic, and Canucks.com. We delve into the Canucks' prospect pool, particularly their lack of depth on defence. We talk about the potential of Olli Juolevi, the abundance of prospects with a third-pairing ceiling, and wild cards like Jack Rathbone and Matt Brassard. One thing is clear: the Canucks need more high-end talent on defence. That likely means taking a defenceman with the seventh overall pick in the 2018 draft. Who might the Canucks take? I ask Biech about several defencemen that will potentially be available for the Canucks, including Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist, Evan Bouchard, and Noah Dobson. Who do you think the Canucks should pick seventh overall?

Today’s guest on the Pass it to Bulis Podcast is Ashley Gronzo, the social media director for HockeyStats.ca. She’s a big proponent of data visualization and using them to tell better data stories. We talked about whether the Canucks should try to collect more players from the Portland Winterhawks, the upcoming free agency, and whether the Canucks will get better in the future. Of course we touch on the retirement of the Sedins, because how could we not? In the second half of the podcast, we get into the debates over the Hart Trophy: can a player win the Hart when his team misses the playoffs? How do you judge who is the most valuable? What do you value the most? Should Connor McDavid win the Hart for winning the Art Ross despite his team not seeing any success? Is Taylor Hall the most valuable because the team wouldn’t be anywhere near the playoffs without him? What about Nathan Mackinnon? Claude Giroux? I make the argument that Sergei Bobrovsky should win the Hart Trophy, when he doesn’t even appear to be in the conversation. If you’re interested in watching the videos from the Vancouver Hockey Analytics Conference that we mentioned, check out Hockey-Graphs.com. https://hockey-graphs.com/events/vanhac18/