Arrow 1983

What if Halak proforms like Holtby are you going to stick with Halak JB won't he gave himself an out

Nope just like the younger guy better

The Canucks will be in LTIR If not by some miracle they would have extra capspace for the trade deadline

Nope Deipitro will play Back up after Halak is waived that means he will play games

I think MD is already better than Halak The Bonuses will role over because the Canucks are using LTIR

Pearson and Dickenson can teach Pods the Canadian defensive game Hogs paired with Horvat will have more offensive opportunities

Halak's bonus doesn't kick in till he plays in 10 games I believe this will never happen. With Demko as starter I believe the Canucks can stretch out 9 games for Halak into December or even up to Christmas by then Deipitro will have played a bunch of games in the AHL and prove he is better than Halak. JB at that point will waive Halak and save the team 1.25 mill in cap next season. JB I think this is the smartest contract signed in a long time. It is just like a contract for a rookie who has to be sent to the minors because he doesn't qualify for the farm team.

I don't see OEL and Myers as a pair they bring offense and JB just brought in a lot of defensive defense men. On the 2nd unit powerplay yes 5 on 5 more like this Hughes Hamonic OEL Poolman Rathbone Myers OJ Scheen With Hamonic, Poolman and Scheen competing for the spot on Hughes right side second best goes on the pairing with OEL. Forwards Miller EP Boeser Hogs Horvat Garland Pearson Dickenson Pods (just can't see Hogs and Pods on the same line Pearson brings the defensive game to the third line and Hogs played well with Horvat last season) Motte Sutter ( and the one that wins out hardest working player in the pre-season)

Edler can't sign nor can any one else till ufa opens

You have no source it will get locked

In before locked

Worse contract in a long time the 35 year old clause kicks in as well

How does a gm sign the kid can't force him to sign a contract. What if he said to his agent I want to see what happens on ufa day before I put pen to paper. How the hell does JB get him to sign. This is just another stupid comment. What if JB has a deal with Montreal GM JB could ask the other GM to offer sheet him to what JB can sign him for with out taking slack from everyone one else all he would have done is match the offer and be a hero for not letting him walk. It is what happen with Caroline

You guys that agree with this are clueless. Benning probably would have agreed to .500k retain (cost of buyout this season) when no one took it Benning knew cap space next year would be plentiful so 1.9mill next year was nothing on the books. Good job Benning for not giving up assets when not needed. 1 mill goalie saves this team millions this year and Deipitro is your cheap back up next season. Sign a 1.5 mill back up this season means real cost is 2.0 mill for a backup and next season MD at just under .900k means real cost for back up is 2.8 mill those are cheap numbers for a back-up considering your starter is making only 5 mill

I like this trade. To me this is 5 years for OEL not 6. LE, Beagle and Roussel where all here for one more season now we replace them and get OEL and Garland this season instead. Garland isn't going to sign for 4.74 mill so the Canucks also gain cap space as well. They are paying OEL 7.26 mill but also takes a spot on the roster who can play 20-21 mins. If the Canucks were to acquire a different dman it would cost them caps space. So if you pay a different dman 6mill that means OEL real cost is 1.26 mill. For all those asking who is going to play Defense on the blue line the answer is OEL. I think OEL is better defensively than most people give him credit for he just hasn't been with a good enough team and Demko will be the best goalie he has played in front of since hitting his prime. The Canucks second unit PP just got a major up grade as well. Both with OEL on the back end and Garland on forward. Garland Is the Key to this deal IMHO, and makes losing the 9th OAP possible. He is 25 years old, he is a goal scoring winger who has shown to put up .65 pts per game in the past 2 seasons. All in all this is a trade that they could make they gain cap space this year to sign Hughes and EP and they take on cap space in years they have room for it. JB biggest issue was he had little cap movement this year because of those dead weight contract but had tons of it next year and years to come. Boeser is the only contract that really matters next season to get done and and then Miller and Horvat the season after.

I think Burrows was just right place right time. The Sedin's had matured by then and began their prime years. I think many players would have had the same success as Burrows did. To be completely honest if MG could have found any one else with even more pure talent than Burrows the Sedin's would have had even greater success. To me Burrows made MG stagnate in his thinking in that position. Everyone views Burrows as the perfect partner for the Sedin's I see Burrows as the guy MG be came content with. It work why try and improve it attitude. MG IMO was a terrible GM. He couldn't find a line mate for Kesler he thought Burrows was good enough for the Sedin and he never could get an Offensive Defenseman to stay long enough. Worse of all he totally over valued Lack in the goalie position and Markstrom at the time was nowhere near read. I still wonder what he would have done to fill that position if he hadn't been fired the only saving grace of that goaltender mess was that we ended up with Horvat. I'm happy tree isn't coming back, he is to much of an unknown to give any term or money to. Hamonic is a short term solution IMO and bad for Hughes. Hughes needs a stable partner someone he and the team can rely on for 4 plus years. I see Hamonic as a 2 year thing after that Hughes would than have to get use to another partner at the time the Canucks should be in their window.

I think Schmidt and Rathbone would make a great pairing both have a balance of defensive and offensive awareness and would make it difficult on other teams to defend well coming out the defensive zone. Either one of them can carry it out or make the first pass so what side does the opposition defend against. This would be true for Hughes and Montour but more dangerous. Than the Canucks could have OJ and Myers on the 3rd pairing. OJ I see as a more Defensive minded player with offensive awareness with Myers who is a little more likely to take offensive risks. That is 3 pairings that would for sure keep every line on the opposition on their toes especially on the rush.

Disclaimer ( Mods move this to arm chair GMing if you feel it should be there but I didn't view this as purely a signing thread) He costs the team nothing in assets and only costs in cap hit. He is only 27 years old so on a 4 year term the contract ends when he is 30 years old 5 year 31 years old or a 6 year contract he would only be 32 years old. he consistently averages 30 plus points per full 82 game season. He is listed as a LD/RD defenseman but shots right. Last year his cap hit was only 3.85mill he is most likely do for a raise but I can't see him getting more than 4.5 mill on a longer term deal. His Name Brandon Montour. What do you guys think could he fit the role of of RD for Hughes. The only downside I see is he isn't as defensive as Tanev and doesn't have the physicality as Hamonic. However, I think his big upside is he understands the offensive game better than those other 2. I think he would be able to read Hughes better and understand when to pull back when Hughes is pinching or when it is time for him to join the rush. With Tanev he never joined the rush because that's not his game. That's why he was able to make Hughes look so good Tanev was always there to bail Hughes out. With Hamonic and Benn they are better suited to play with guys that don't take as many risks as Hughes. They themselves are not what you would call stellar Defensive defenseman and they both lack the understanding of the offensive game. With Benn and Hamonic just like Tanev you almost loss a guy on an offensive rush. I would call Tanev a solid #3 and belongs on a shut down pair. Hamonic IMO is a 4-5 defenseman depending on how deep a teams defense is. Benn IMO is a 3rd pair defenseman who can fill in on a 2nd pair during injuries. I see Hughes as a player like Montour with a far superior offensive game but with the same type of defensive skills. Hughes will never have Tanev's sense of defensiveness or Hamonics physical presence and I don't expect him to have either that's not the type of defenseman he is ever going to be like. However, Montour is some one Hughes could emulate and even surpass in defensive awareness. Montour, is good at understanding when to pinch and when not to. His game isn't based on toughest but on positional play. IMO, With Hughes speed no one should be able to get around him as long as he maintains the proper position on the opposition. Hughes isn't going to clear the net for his goalie but with his offensive awareness he has the hockey IQ to know where the puck is going and get his stick in the way of passes or where to be when the puck is shot wide. In conclusion, my theory is why should Hughes best defensive partner be his opposite. IMHO it should be someone that is a veteran who has learned the game and can teach Hughes to play the game the right way not specifically the right way but the right way that fits Hughes game. I believe that it is counter productive to find Hughes a defensive partner that covers up his mistakes and never allows him to have to improve his defensive game. Furthermore, I must ask how many Tanev's are their in the league and what would it cost to the team if they could even find one. I will give you a Canuck example, Burrows complemented the Sedin's game he was the opposite of they way they played. In this example the Key words are Sedin's and they meaning their was already 2 of them. The Sedin's where similar players they both understood the offensive game. One was slightly a better playmaker and one was slightly a better goal scorer but they both could be both. Same is true for Morrison and Naslund and Bertuzzi complemented the pair. You might already know where this example is headed. Forward lines are made up of 3s but defensive pairings are made up of 2s. So, I am questioning what type of pairing is best. Opposites that complement each others or 2 guys similar who can read off of each other and are on the same page.

your right the answer is no No he isn't a physical defenseman, no he will never be a physical defenseman. Almost everything you mentioned is based on what you would expect from a big body D-man. The only 2 that would actually have anything to do with Hughes game are recovery and position. So lets ask the question, can he recover from mistakes. Yes he has the means the speed to do so. It is also interesting you mention he take offensive risks is this true. Yes. But there are 2 sides of this. 1) if you take a risk you leave your self open for a mistake. Therefore, is recovery even a question. Yes he has the means to recover but is he expecting to recover probably not. He is taking a risk in hopes that he will gain something or because he sees something. The question isn't about recovery but carelessness. Does his game show recklessness. You could make the argument for the affirmative or is it something else all together. and that bring us to the next point. 2) In his first season he was paired with Tanev therefore, recovery wasn't an issue Tanev insured that if his risk didn't pay off that it wasn't going to lead to a good chance against. This year he was paired with guys that aren't Tanev. So those risks when they didn't pay off were more noticeable. So what does this say. I would argue that hockey is a game of team defense but offense is the means in which a team wins so both are equally important. A team requires players that play offense and defense. It has also been said many times before that hockey is about the superstars not as much as basketball but still non the less the superstars the clutch players win you games. Hughes, I would argue is a clutch player therefore it is as much his team mates responds ability to play defense as it is Hughes. Hughes D partner has to be able to read what he is doing and cover for him this goes for the winger or center that is not part of the play as well to fall back and cover for Hughes. A good example is on a PP when you see a defenseman pinch the off winger will shift to defense to take that position in case the Defenseman is caught pinching. It is a matter of understanding the workings of the game to fully understand Hughes short comings but his short comes don't disprove that he is a #1 defenseman. Hughes, is reading the game at a high offensive level and was paired with guys like Benn and Hamonic which most would argue that are bottom 3 pairing on most teams #5 and 6 who lack any real offensive talent and theirfor would have issues understanding what Hughes is doing. Furthermore, Last season was Hughes second season and was 21 years old and many have said it before most d-men don't figure the game out until their mid 20s. Hughes is miles ahead of most d-men. He is compared to the best in the league because he is one of the best d-man in the league. To your point of positional play you again have no clue what you are talking about. Show me times where goals are getting scored on him well in the defensive zone. First they would be few and far between for 2 reasons. 1) it doesn't happen that often because he often is in the right position and he often recovers the puck quit quickly once the opposition has shot it or lost possession he does this with his speed and the ability to understand where the puck is going. 2) It doesn't happen that often because he gets mostly offensive starts and therefore faces few defensive zone set ups . When Hughes is on the ice goals are scored more often from the rush either due to turn over or a shot recovery from the opposition. Not from defensive zone set ups. But here is the problem and I have said it before to you. You have opinions not facts. SO I say to you, so you think you know hockey and you think you know stats corsi and fenwick those just touch the surface. Do you know every NHL team tracks stuff like puck recovery. Hughes has great advance stats as the first player to touch the puck after the opposition turns it over. Did you know that even gets tracked. here is an article for you I suggest you read it. NHL stats: How to measure forechecking and puck retrieval off the dump-and-chase - SBNation.com That article is dated May 7 2014 that is just some of the stuff that teams track. It is Why Kyle Dubas at his age can be GM of Maple Leafs.

So you think there are only 2 sides of being a defense man. He does everything else better than most and does one thing worse he is one of the best #1 defenseman in the league

Funny how you call things facts The more you talk the more most realize you have no idea what you are talking. You gave opinions you don't have facts

Tell me 31 d men better than Hughes One can debate where he is as a #1 d man but one can't debate that he isn't a #1 He plays #1 mins is used like a #1 d man offense starts and PP and produces like a #1 pass like a #1 sets players up like a #1 has a first pass like a #1 moves the puck from zones like a #1 . That doesn't scream 1 dimension it means he has 1 part of his game he needs to improve is it a big part yes but still 1 part and most offense #1s don't Excell at the defensive game any ways. Letang is still a #1 for Pittsburgh but isn't all that great at defense. Most #1 d men aren't asked to play PK some do but most don't. 1 dimension would be if he was a PP specialist but didn't produce 5 on 5 or did anything else and had a bad defensive game. You sir don't know what 1 dimensional means. Or you think that there is only 2 parts of being a defense man.

I would note as well all 3 of those guys played on better defensive teams. Deeper defensive line-ups and 2 of them made the playoffs Chychrun isn't even their #1 defenseman

All three of your examples have had lower points than Hughes and have garnered lower dollar value. Well higher scorers seem to garner a higher value so yes I put high value on points because it looks like GMs put a higher value on points. However, when I compared Makar to Hughes I did say Makar had a better defensive game so I do suggest it plays a role but points play a bigger role it would seem when teams are dishing out the bigger dollars. Hamilton doesn't really count because it was 6 years ago different cap climate now.

I have a feeling that you just don't like a 3@ 7mill contract because if you look at the 2 players EP actually looks better than Barzal. EP is a far more complete player both a goal scorer and Playmaker as Barzal has only had 1 20 goal season (in his first year) and is more a playmaker while EP was about to get his 3rd 20 goal season before injury. I wouldn't trade EP straight up for Barzal. Truth is as soon as next season starts EP will be underpaid if he where to sign a 3 year 7 mill contract right now