Want to sound smart at a Canucks playoff party? Here are tips

So you're hosting a playoff party? You want to sound smart?

There are all the obvious things for fans to know: Who's the top scorer, who's the No. 1 goalie, what Rick Tocchet said before the game about his matchup preferences. Those are all easy.

We're here to give you a few key points we have gathered from players in recent weeks, to help you impress your friends.

Here are the most intriguing responses.

BODY POSITIONING

“Body position,” Conor Garland said. Outsiders have made note of Garland using his small stature to get underneath larger opponents, but the speedy winger pointed to another diminutive teammate as a better example: Nils Hoglander.

“Look at Hoggy,” he went on. “He had to learn to battle. Look at the goals he scores. He gets those because of body position.”

Hoglander also said body positioning, but for different reasons.

“Protecting the puck,” he said. That was a big thing he realized he had to understand once he arrived in the NHL: How good players are at protecting the puck, at keeping you from taking the puck away.

Sam Lafferty highlighted something also about body positioning: wall play. “Guys are on you so quick. It's smarts. It's positioning. Think of the D-man coming back for the puck, he has to be ready for a forechecker right away.”

HOW TO USE YOUR STICK

When we spoke with Brock Boeser, the Canucks had just faced the Vegas Golden Knights a few days before.

“Reach,” he said. “Like (Alex) Pietrangelo. Oh man. You think you have space and he takes it away.”

Boeser's new teammate Carson Soucy is very adept as well at using his stick to disrupt the efforts of puck carriers. “Yeah, he's great at it,” Boeser concurred.

Teddy Blueger pointed out how well the Carolina Hurricanes' Jaccob Slavin uses a combination of body positioning and stick to make zone entries very difficult.

“You think you can beat him, but you can't. He uses his body to control the space so well, and his stick makes it really hard to have any control,” he said.

Pius Suter is known as a smart player. He's not big, but he also makes great use of his stick.

“You need a good stick on puck, like defensively. If you know where to put it, you can disrupt. You can pick off passes,” he explained.

READING THE PLAY

Goalies have a unique view of the game, so Casey DeSmith's answer was no surprise.

“You've got to have awareness, how to read the play.”

If you can't master those, he said, you are going to get beaten, no matter how good your positioning.

“You've got to have hockey IQ, of knowing what to do,” Nikita Zadorov reinforced. “You can have skills, but if you don't know how to use it you're nothing.”

PUCK BATTLES

Ian Cole knows the playoffs. He's made the playoffs with eight different teams. He's appeared in the playoffs with a different squad in each of the past five seasons. There's a reason.

“Winning 50/50 battles. Will is the key to winning,” he said.

PUSH THE PLAY

Mark Friedman knows one thing is essential: push the play.

“You have to be always moving. Look at (Colorado's Nathan) MacKinnon,” he said. “Guys don't stand around in this league.”

GOALIE INTERFERENCE

And here's one from your author: It's always amazing to see people get up in arms about goals being called back for goalie interference.

It's a pretty simple question: Was the goalie impeded in any way from playing his position in the crease?

If the answer is yes, it's not a goal.