Highstickin

Making the statement "you can teach defence, you can't teach scoring" is simply a lie. I agree that offense is not easy to learn but playing solid defense takes commitment, the IQ to read plays and the heart to play physical/punishing hockey. There are a lot of players now that are not willing to put in the effort in the D-zone because a) all they want are stats on a sheet of paper & b) they don't want to get their hands dirty. Your entire argument here can be neutralized by looking at who won the cup this year. Guess what, Vegas didn't give a crap how many points each player got they only cared about winning. You say top 6 guys are not here to shut down opposing players, well Vegas' top 6 does and they are contenders year over year because of it. You can value all your regular season goals, assist and points you want but when games matter the most defense wins (and this includes players in your top 6).

I like it, especially if there is belief Danielson will slide to 15 and we can pick up a RHD through the trade to ease the pressure of drafting a d-man high this year. For the same reason would you have interest in: To Calgary: 11OA, Garland To Van: 16OA, Rasmus Andersson It's going down one more spot but is Andersson worth it? I wonder if Calgary would bite considering they have several forwards already saying they aren't resigning. This gives them a solid middle 6 winger with term.

Carlo would be a great add but I don't think Boston is willing to give him up even with their cap situation. I also think it would come at a pretty good price to acquire him. Regardless of Boston's cap issues, it's the market that sets his price not the team he is with. Teams can try to take advantage of the Canucks cap situation because the players we are willing to move are all mid-late 20s wingers that are under performing their contracts. The market for those players in the NHL is not good, they are not in high demand, so teams can demand lower prices/sweeteners for them. In terms of Carlo, teams will be lining up to take on a big body RHD that is on a decent contract. If the Vegas cup win says anything about how to build a D core, every team will be looking for size and skating ability. On top of that, Carlo has a 10 team no trade and I am willing to bet Van is on that list.

Boston might be in a tight spot with their cap but that is exactly why they are going to need all the prospects on ELCs they can get. So what sweetener are you expecting from them? Their 2023 3rd? 2023 4th? 2024 4th? That's all they have left and if filling cap space with a player we don't need only nets us a 3rd or 4th round pick I pass.

Agree that we need to be careful about overvaluing Bear in contract negotiations but the Monahan contract is so far from a comparable for him it's really not relevant. Can we also stop with the weaponizing cap space! The canucks buy out OEL to get some cap breathing room and suddenly people want us to fill it back up with crap contracts just to get some measly 3rd round picks. MOVE ON. This team does not need to load up on 3rd round picks or even 2nd round picks when our core is getting closer to their prime ages. What team "weaponized" their cap space recently and had success with it? None, if you do that your just entering a long and painful rebuild that may or may not work out. I understand your concern over spending in free agency and I will agree that we cannot keep overpaying players and hoping they play up to that contract but look around at successful teams. The Stanley Cup champs this year alone had only 1 player they actually drafted and 8 players that were signed during FA who played a role in their run. There are a lot of ways to build a successful team but when a teams core is nearing its prime and you have limited cap space, you don't take on poor contracts to get marginal returns.

Probably just mailing it in so he doesn't get picked by the Habs ... or really any other team in the top 10. Jokes aside, which team in the top 10 picks would you want to play for right now? Detroit maybe? Nobody in the top 3 are going to select him for sure, San Jose is likely in for a long rebuild, nobody wants to play in Arizona, Philliy is a disaster, Washington is on the backside of a cliff in terms of age and performance, so that leaves St. Louis or Detroit.

Figured so, but couldn't pass up the opportunity .

Wait .... do we somehow still have OEL and have to buyout Kuz? And here people thought Benning made questionable decisions; cap management!

Agree with you here. The highest cap hit on an OEL buy out is years 3 & 4, which should be the years the canucks are targeting to be the most competitive. In those two years the buy out hit is 4.7M which leaves just 2.5M left to replace OEL if we want to maintain the same overall cap hit for the 2nd pair LD. The question then is who will you get for 2.5M that plays at the same level as OEL? Lot's of people like to crap on OEL for the year he just had but I think thats a very shortsighted view of what he brings. In the end I don't see us being able to replace him for 2.5M. If the argument was that the Canucks are competitive right now and could use the low cap hit for the next two seasons to bring in a last piece to make a contender, I might be inclined to buy him out. The reality, as you pointed out, is that the next two seasons are not contender seasons so why rush it?

It's possible the trade waits until the 11OA pick to be completed. If CLB likes a player still on the board they swap who ever they picked at 3 (assuming it's Carlsson or Fantilli) for 11 and Miller. That way they are not guessing at who they could have. If their list of players with enough value at 11 is empty they don't accept the trade and we pick at 11. In this case I think CLB holds all the leverage and VAN would have to accept those terms. Miller isn't the only piece they could get if they wanted to move 3OA.

Jason Spezza?

Agree with some of your points here but I disagree that TO is one of the easiest franchises to run. I think there are a number of players in the league that actively stay out of TO because of the attention. There are a lots of managers south of the board that get far less scrutiny for having stretches of poor performance. I think it would be a lot easier to run teams in cities no one cares about.

He wouldn't have had to do Gymnastics if he would have signed players to contracts they had actually earned rather than contracts he hoped they would earn. I also don't think he brought the right complementary pieces at all. He did not fix the defensive issues with the team and the leader he brought in and paid $11M per season only had 1 more playoff series win in his career than the leafs. There was talk about the canucks having a country club atmosphere prior to the Bo trade, well your looking at another team whose culture is very much a country club and that falls on the GM.

You would also hope Bob's play is serving as a reminder that players can find their way out of a rough patch and play back up to their contracts. Maybe he hasn't been great for the past season and a half but they are getting every dollar out of that contract right now. We don't know what he may have been dealing with over that rough stretch; physically or mentally but he is showing he is still capable. Lots of people like to pile on OEL right now but if a 34 yr old goalie in Florida can get back to form who says a 32 yr old defenseman can't next season?

Agree on this. @eeeeergh my point may have been lost in my wording a bit. I was not saying players sub 6' and 190 have no place in the game but with the current construction of the canucks, we cannot keep acquiring small, fast players. We have an abundance of players that fall into the category of small or fast or just simply not physical. Not many on the roster have all those characteristics but the reality is we lack players with size that play at their size.