DrJockitch

Fedorov got moved back to D quite a bit one year.

A step for Woo is getting an NHL preseason game. He made great strides last year and hopefully can get in a smattering of games this year. If he blows all expectations away he still probably isn’t a third pairing NHLer this year.

We tend to throw someone in to play over their head and let Q carry them. Imagine if we threw a really good d who complements Q. Hronek has a great shot and is RHD. Q is an amazing passer. Hronek likes to lug the puck out of the zone, Q does everything and anything to get the puck out at elite level. Hronek is the closest in talent and compliments Q the best. Only issue is they both lack size but lack of size doesn’t hold Toews and Makar back. Put the 2 best D together especially since Hronek is our only true RD other than Myers. We can have a Soucy Cole second pair for a hard shutdown, force everything to the outside pairing that still moves the puck fairly well.

Glad I am not the only one who keeps saying this.

I said legs.

Why does the goalie have the biggest legs of the bunch.

I would have put OEL #5 on that list but then I read Vlasic’s summary and it was pretty much OEL but OEL was $1M more.

Rebuilding team for 10 years, still a bottom third prospect cupboard. Improving, maybe, good, no. Pretty good draft this year helped, trading away high pics again didn’t. Good job finding prospects outside the draft since we hate 2nd rounders so much.

EP doesn’t need to be captain. Everyone knows he is the most important player on the team. I am all in on QH, probably best choice we have. He can get his brothers to come over later.

Uber. There, is that so hard.

I don’t care who. Really I think it really doesn’t matter much anymore. I don’t like seeing the scoring star made captain, they already get enough press responsibility, don’t like to see the C used to try to pressure someone to sign an extension like we have done in the past. Passed those two situations, IDGAF.

Have been saying that I like the vast majority of the acquisitions PA has made. My problems with how the club has been run are better seen from a few steps back and more and more seem to be related to the FA/JR pairing. The constant always take every shortcut to get better now approach has marked JR’s career and FA’s ownership. This leads to always being tight against the cap no matter the quality of the team which handicaps us down the road. OEL the worst example of this. This is still our general management philosophy it is just being carried out by a much smarter group. The path was wrong when the new group took over but now we are stuck on it and are doing a fair job of working in that restraint. While the direction is the same it is now being done much more competently aside from some terrible PR problems. To quote myself from the spring, I said that after the OEL buyout, if we went into the draft and UFA frenzy with all that cap space and all we did was sign some middling UFAs then we would have squandered almost all the value of that cap space at a time when it was at it’s historical highest. I was mostly correct but did missed that this led to some particularly good values on the UFA market. Still a loss of opportunity and a squandering of value but again PA did a really nice job in acquisitions. I still do feel somewhat frustrated that the top priority of this club since they drafted him should have been to find Q a long term partner and we have done everything but. Maybe they will run QH-Hronek with Soucy-Cole. I actually kind of prefer that. I think we signed some really good deals this off-season. Nothing bumping into the OEL penalty, filled some tough to fill positions at reasonable costs. Got a lot of size added to our D and should dramatically improve our PK as it is essentially all new. That is some tidy work. We have not been able to move money and our forward core actually got smaller somehow and we have a glut of about 37 middle 6 wingers. This year should be really fun. We could be terrible, we could be really good wouldn’t be surprised at either. Suspect we will be right there for WC, in or not, who knows. The pro scouting is so far ahead of Benning’s regime that you wonder if he was just watching highlights and picking who he liked from sport centre.

Kuz was a great add not just for the 50g potential but as a positive, fun personality on the team. Hopefully his fitness improves and his all around game gets better but don’t loose what he is as a player. Primary focus go to the net and score still, that is what you are getting paid for. You can have a winger on the team that isn’t good defensively when they are scoring 40+ goals. Someone who can do that and play all situations is special (see: EP40). Glad to see he publicly seems to have that drive and say the right things. If can do it on the ice too then we will be looking good.

Understand that but typically players don't get paid much for the defensive side of the game. 30pts for a rookie D is very good but $64M after rookie year is crazy but that is the sort of gamble Canadian teams are facing at this time.

Dakota Joshua hands down then likely Soucy, Pearson, Myers.

They are on tour this fall. I see so many Canadian bands it is hard to pick a favourite. Just saw Grandson a few weeks ago and if anyone has a chance to see him go and thank me later, one of the best live performers out there.

One season in the league and 30 points. Still think Bo is overpaid? (Don't answer that Alf, I know your answer)

Raty and Klim have looked much better but have a ways to go. EP, JT, Suter, Bluger, Aman and Dries are ahead of Raty on the depth chart at C at this point and about 52 wingers ahead of Klim, I don’t see them getting much time this year. I think that is a good thing though. They need more time in the AHL, they are only 20. Season after would expect them seeing more time in NHL and when the OEL penalty kicks up in 2 years seems more reasonable timeline for them to be breaking into league. Never know though, someone may come in and blow the doors off.

Given how politically charged and divisive this board gets and how mad people get from being moderated when getting deep into some hateful garbage, I would not be surprised at all if they shut it down.

Young D men, young D men, young d men. Parayko is too much of a risk after surgery and as bad as he looked since he signed. Would love to find the next Parayko, need to stop paying players for what they were for somebody else.

I generally agree with most of what was said in that article. I think Demko needs to be managed carefully and they should bring in a veteran backup or play Silovs 50G between both clubs. EP is maturing physically and coming into his peak. I feel like Q is also close. You ride the horses if they are healthy. It is not overplaying them, it is utilizing them. It is, however, time to be cognizant of overusing JTM early in the year though. I am actually surprised we didn’t trade next years first yet. Good for PA for showing some restraint. You know JR is itching to move that thing out.

Size yeah but not a good hockey player and slow. Love to have size but not size that can’t skate.

RT was saying he generally thinks they would be settling in in mid August. I think he is making a bit of a vet mistake. Guys with kids won’t wait until Sept to settle and get kids ready for school. And man why wouldn’t you want to be in Vancouver in the summer.

They can use them I believe, just independently, not formal or required team events.

I agree with Gurn on this one. If tourists are coming to Van to see the Canucks it is because they are BC ex-pats or the rare non BC grown Canuck’s fan. The practice facility won’t effect that. Public money should not be spent on these teams. It is just billionaires playing municipalities and governments off each other for profit. One of the points of pride in being a Canucks fan is that we have a privately funded arena. Government kicked on money for stadiums and facilities for Olympics but that is different (and something I don’t like either). That is the society we live in though, tax payers giving money to billionaires so they can be bigger billionaires. We should be looking for a state of the art practice facility and it should be downtown or at least easily accessible to the players who mostly live in Vancouver proper. Canadian teams have been showing again and again that they will struggle to keep players. Being the best franchise we can for the player and for player development is vitally important. It should be payed for by the club and not the BC taxpayers IMHO.