Rindiculous

Dekeyser not getting signed with that effort lol

Holy our pp is gonna be insane this year. That unit looked sick.

How he didn't make the team last year I will never know. I think with the injuries he's gonna make it this year.

Kuzmenko has been looking fire so far tonight

Oh my new Bruce emote let's gooooooo

Pearson is higher up the depth chart than #9 right now. He's just too good at the walls. Look at the video with above with Pettersson line vs Miller line. The Miller line was in the offensive zone almost the entire time and most of that has to do with Pearson along the walls.

OEL took PP duties over fine while Quinn was out last year. While it'd be a blow if there's anytime to learn, now is the time.

I would put Bo with Mikheyev because they play more similar north south games which probably meshes better. Maybe put Boeser on the wing cause he's more like that as well. Most of our other forwards are a lot more east west which probably fits a lot better together than splitting the north south guys and put them with east west guys.

Yah imagine getting him back (hopefully close to 100%). We could have a fourth line of Pearson-Sutter-Dickenson. That's a 3rd line on a lot of contending teams. Shore up the center depth immensely. However, can we really push Lazar out of the lineup so soon after we signed him? Or do we push out Dickenson and put Sutter on the wing or start Sutter as a healthy scratch? It's hard to fit him in but I'd love to see him back as a Canuck he's a player with heart that was on an overpaid contract, but he was excellent for his role and was super sad to see him have such a bad falling out with Covid.

Honestly I really like the idea, however like another poster said I'd want to be sure that one of OEL, Hughes, or Chychrun can play the right side with no drop off which would be a hard thing to do so I don't think management goes that direction and would rather wait for next offseason or this TDL to make those decisions.

I really do like these lines. Maybe I'd switch Garland and Hoglander, but everything else looks great. And if someone is struggling Pearson can easily fill in on another line and boost their offense.

Why do people always put Pearson in the same sentence as Dickenson. Completely disrespecting Pearson. He's one of the most efficient contracts on the team while Dickenson is a complete black hole where offense goes to die.

It's gotta pass the Miller signing thread first, which is probably gonna be a tall task in itself

The year is 2029. The Canucks have just won the Stanley Cup 5 times. This thread has now reached 4,000 pages. We are now treating this thread as a "Burrows, do we really need him?" sequel. At the same time, some members are still quoting posts from the year 2022 to brag to the people who thought Miller should have been traded.

What is everyone's problem? The guy gets signed and everyone is now getting into 'he can still get traded'. Now I get the sarcasm what this is such a stupid take noone in their right mind trades a guy after they've signed him long term unless it was known before. It's stupid, nonsensical, and image suicide.

Only 1131 more pages to go to pass the other thread

I was never really that high on Fiala personally. Like yah he's a top 6 player, but I consider him quite inconsistent like Boeser. The x-factor for the Wild is Kirill Kaprizov. That guy is insane and really could be in the conversation with Mcdavid or Mackinnon as one of the top 3 players in the league for the next 10 years. He's only ever gotten better year after year. That was what the Wild had been missing up until they got him. But now with that superstar at forward on their roster, with a great defense, and a solid goaltender, they stack up with any contender. But every team has holes. Yes their forward depth is not very good to atrocious and they really have screwed themselves with their dead cap otherwise they would easily be a top 5 team in the league. However, their defense and goaltender are world class plus they showed last year just how good they were.

Can't say I'd classify the Rangers in that category (they are one of the worst teams in the league 5 on 5 they got very lucky this year in performances and if Shesterkin gets injured they are a lottery team), also Minnesota should 100% be on there probably next to St. Louis in the top contenders column. Also, I feel so many people are so high on LA for no reason except because they lucked their asses off making the playoffs last year. Their prospects aren't nearly as good as Anaheim's and they are still getting 90% of the heavy lifting done by their old guard. I could see them regressing to a lottery team this year because a lot of things went right for them last year. Maybe I'm wrong and they're a really fringe playoff team, but they're very similar to Dallas imo. A lot of old guard blocking the way of a true rebuild by taking up too much cap space and keeping them in mediocrity. I actually like Dallas's future a lot more than LA because Roope Hintz, Jake Oettinger, and Jason Robertson really seem to be the real deal however they have a much worse cap situation. Anyway my list of favourites in order would be COL, FLA, CAR, TBL, STL, MIN, then a margin between those and CGY, TOR, EDM, VAN, NYR, BOS, NJD (yes I'm high on them this year) who I think are pretty close to each other, then another margin and you get WAS, PIT, VGK and the last of the fringe playoff teams imo are NSH, DAL, OTT, LAK, WPG, NYI, DET, ANA in that order and then the rest are probably all gonna be lottery teams.

It is hard to determine because everyone outside of the top 8 forwards last year are so close in the most tangible measures. 21-43 are separated by 10 points while 9-21 are separated by 15 and 1-9 are separated by 24. Like the difference from JT Miller to Jesper Bratt is the exact same as Connor McDavid to JT Miller. But then classifying someone as elite takes years as well because while a guy like Jesper Bratt had 73 points last year, would anyone classify him as elite with his second best season being less than half that number? So I don't know if you can really make an objective term of whether a player is elite or not. Like some you will classify as being right in the middle of it easily like a Sascha Barkov or Artemi Panarin. However, is Roope Hintz elite? Now, I really like that player so I'd probably classify him as so, but there are many people who would argue that he's just a good top 6 forward.

Blatantly false. We were 15th in xGA last year according to moneypuck. That is not last or near last in the league. That is average. Straight average. In terms of actual GA/60, we were 3rd in the entire league. Yes, that means Demko pulled a lot of heavy lifting to bring us up from average to elite, but we were still a completely average squad last year in terms of defense which is not great, but should get you by with the forwards that we have on paper. In terms of teams right around us in terms of defensive prowess are the Kings, Ducks, Rangers, Leafs, and freaking TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING. You call that a complete team, yet they're average defensively as well. Other supposed contenders below us include the Florida Panthers, Oilers, Knights (some people called them that), and Blues (who are all the way at 25th). Also, I thought Myers fit fine with OEL as a shutdown pairing. Maybe OEL could be used more offensively with other players, but I really think he found a good role on our team. Yes, succession is a problem, but it is not a problem with our team this very next year which we are talking about right now. Overall, yes I agree the right side is a hole, but it is not a team crippling hole that can't be covered up by how good the rest of the team is and many other contenders deal with the exact same problems we do so this next year we could be considered a contender if our chemistry is able to come together.

Maybe it's an issue, maybe it's not. Looking at last years stats the D was the furthest thing from the issue of this team. It was first the PK, then the 5 on 5 offense. In terms of GA 5 on 5 we were top 5 and in terms of chance suppression, we were top 15. Also who needs a 3C and we have our three cornerstone centers down the middle already? A 3C is kind of redundant unless we run into injury trouble, but are we gonna bring in a 3C to scratch him or play him on the 4th line until that happens? We could but probably not and no team does that. Prospect depth does not affect a cup winning roster, only that rosters long term viability. We already have that depth sitting in the minors waiting for the call up that can be used for injuries. No one has a Tanner Pearson or Conor Garland just sitting in the minors waiting for a callup. Who on Colorado's or Tampa's depth chart in the minors do you see that is so much better than ours? Yes Tampa and Colorado are probably the only two teams that didn't have any holes besides Colorado's average goaltending, however those aren't the only two contenders in the entire league. You can still be considered a contender with major flaws. Look at Edmonton, Toronto, Calgary, Washington, Boston, NYR, St. Louis, Minnesota, even Carolina and Florida as examples. You can find a hole on all of those rosters. Chemistry is what makes Carolina such a good defensive team, and Toronto such a good offensive team. Not because their roster doesn't have a single hole.

What holes or structural issues? Right side of the defense? Anything else? Cause I don't see it. Almost every single contender has a hole like that on their roster that they just use stopgaps for. People obsess over roster makeup, however I think the biggest determinant in the top 15 teams in the league is mostly roster chemistry. If you have good chemistry you're top of the league, if not you're middling. That was our most major problem last year imo which let LA, Nashville, Dallas etc. into the playoffs with far inferior rosters compared to what we had.

Ok Edler is probably one of the worst examples you could have brought up. After he turned 30 he turned into an absolute stud on the blueline for us for 5 years and was only ever thwarted by the terrible covid season. LA got him as a good cornerstone for their defense last year and he's still quite a good serviceable defenseman at 36.

To be fair, both of those players have played well above their contracts for their entire contracts. Way better than Toronto's situation. But for some reason even with the two top scorers in the league each year for only 25% of the cap, they are incapable of surrounding those two with a good supporting cast with the other 75% of the cap. Back to Toronto's situation I find it absolutely insane that Tavares, Marner, and Matthews carry about a 50% higher cap EACH than the contract Miller just signed. Yet, they are the opposite compared to Edmonton where they're able to get good players signed for such cheap deals like Giordano to surround that cast of overpaid suckers.

I like how the fan base has gone from he’s likely traded to his number might end up in the rafters in 24 hours