Bren Mo

I think you might be onto something but I doubt Gillis is intentionally gonna try be awful next year to draft mcdavid. Why? Because he might get fired because people are going to keep exposing his mistakes, fans wont pay high ticket prices to watch a terrible team, and ownership can then fire him and say we are starting over, have the new gm draft mcdavid, and start over with renewed fan support. Gillis will try put a team of 3rd liners together, try make it into the playoffs or as close as he can, and sell everyone on staying patient until toews and kane 2.0 are ready (bo and hunter) and that we are following the chicago model now.

I felt bad when I read lou got traded...great goalie but had an extremely soft defence group in front of him and teams kept exploiting that. I dont see how we got better here. We need an elite guy or 2 to mentor.the youth or more youth. We also have a defensive minded coach so why not have defensive minded defencemen in front of an elite goalie to give the youth a little breathing room for when they make the occasional mistake? Lack and markstrom will now be under the microscope, matthias is a weak 2nd liner or above avg 3rd liner, and their combined salaries are about the same as what we paid lou.

I felt bad when I read lou got traded...great goalie but had an extremely soft defence group in front of him and teams kept exploiting that. I dont see how we got better here. We need an elite guy or 2 to mentor.the youth or more youth. We also have a defensive minded coach so why not have defensive minded defencemen in front of an elite goalie to give the youth a little breathing room for when they make the occasional mistake? Lack and markstrom will now be under the microscope, matthias is a weak 2nd liner or above avg 3rd liner, and their combined salaries are about the same as what we paid lou.

I suspect torts was brought in to help some of our guys waive their ntcs including lou.

Maata, despres,1st,sutter, and engylland For Kesler, bieksa. Then you go try get an elite stud dman to help mentor maata, despres, and tanev. You can use sutter, pittsburghs 1st round pick, this years 1st if you dont win the lottery (not giving up ekblad) edler and garrison to get your shea weber. Now your top 5 defencemen look like: Weber/elite dman Hamhuis Despres Maata Tanev To round it out you go get a john erskine or matt carkner to protect lou Edit: nevermind about erskine or carkner, you got engylland now

As.far as.the ntcs to those kinds of players goes, i think mg looks at things in terms of saving.$ and avoiding risk. Handing out a ntc to chris higgins if mg thinks it.will save him a bit of $ towards the cap=great success in his eyes. Chris higgins.is a fairly consistent player too = less risk=another great success

1) one of his main strengths is understanding the salary cap. He does a very good job at this actually and we have seen it in guys sitting on the IR maybe a tad longer than they could have as well as his convincing players to stay for a.little less $ (in exchange for ntcs, by making it more.comfortable for our players with the little things, and stuff like that) 2) he is patient to a fault. It worked when he kept av around and didnt.dismantle the team when he first came on board. That being said he doesnt act quickly on things either and they tend to get.drawn out over long periods of time. 3) i dont think he likes risk. He would rather do nothing than take a chance 4) he prefers balance than a combination of.elite players and lower tier players. He would.rather roll 4 lines of.guys who are all 2nd-3rd liners than have a true first line and true 4th line. On d he wants 4-5 top 2nd pairing guys rather than a true elite guy or 2 and a couple weak links 5) he prefers good skating and skill over toughness and determination 6) his trades are based on getting rid of small assetts in exchange for what he hopes will be diamonds in the rough. No blockbusters as.its too much risk

Good post. It reminded of when torts first got hired and one of the sedins said they liked it and wanted to be atougher team to play against. Then earlier this year i read a few comments on here about how the sedins were gritty and tough now undwr torts. The reality is like you and denis mentioned. You need players who already fit that system and style of play. Nagging and shouting at players to effectively play in a way they arent built to play isnt going to take you far. You need to bring in personnel who already see the game and play that way naturally. You dont try turn mason raymonds into bob proberts, sedins into dale hunters, and so on. To be fair to torts if they want him to stay mg needs to ship out some od the guys who arwnt capable of playing his style and bringing some guys in who can.

Did you expose yourself and open up and were punished for it somehow? Do you intimately know someone with a desperate need for attention?

We lost shneider for him because mg didnt play his.cards right. Now we have to hold on to him no matter what to make sure he is = to or greater than cory? Imo your goal is to win a cup, and making moves to cover your tracks and try make up for bad trades isnt the path to winning lord stanleys.mug

All prospects are individual people that you are trying to develop. Some keep improving as players, some dont, and sometimes good or bad luck comes into the equation. Seeing a yoing team succeed and assuming you will have the same success if you bring in players of.the same age group is like saying edler=lidstrom because they are both swedes or we had 6 swedes on our team=detroit model, we didnt win cup=detroit model debunked.

Anyone can be traded for the right price and under certain circumstances. Even prime wayne gretzky was dealt so how can bo horvat be considered untouchable? I wouldnt deal him for an andrew ladd or ray whitney but I would deal him + for an evander kane or jamie benn in a main'n'hastings minute. I would even do him for brad marchand straight up and have marchand mentor kassian and some younger guys on how to be an intense, super competitive, piece of nastiness.

What exactly does it take to be a canucks fan?

I think he is comfortable with making the playoffs and having a realistic chance to win a round or two. If he can do that every year his job is probably safe as the Canucks make good $ on those tickets and it keeps the fan base excited. He probably thinks If he starts taking chances and they don't work and the team misses the playoffs as a result, that he might get fired. Now if you look at his deals, they usually don't work out so he is probably thinking "let's just stay put and don't do anything because I'm 90% the team will get in the playoffs anyways"