SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME

CDC today be like…

https://www.nhl.com/canucks/video/vancouver-canucks-live-stream-6336965085112 https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/winnipeg-jets-live-stream-6336966650112 Live stream links to the 2pm game today. And looks like the YouTube stream also just populated (wasn’t available before):

Link to new site: https://www.forumcanucks.com/

Haven’t seen him mentioned much, but I thought #13 Jacob Maillet had a really strong game. Looked to me like the best of the Canucks’ invites (Bowman also had some moments and made a mostly positive impression but I thought he was a tad inconsistent shift-to-shift and made a few mistakes). Maillet would probably make my shortlist of standouts from this game (alongside those names already mentioned by others). Even setting aside the goal he scored (which was a nice one), he was quite noticeable and made a lot of smart plays in all three zones. Brought a strong, consistent effort and energy, and he constantly was contesting pucks, anticipating well, and able to disrupt the opposition. Definitely came as advertised, recently named “best defensive forward” and “most underrated player” in the OHL coaches’ poll. Was nice to see his efforts rewarded with the goal, and also generate some chances on offence, but I was even more impressed by his checking/defensive play. If Maillet can maintain this level of two-way performance throughout the tournament, have to think he’ll be kept around on for a longer look at camp and maybe an AHL contract with the Abby Canucks could be in his future.

game should be here at 7:30

7:30 Canucks Flames 4:00 Oilers Jets (stream linked in my post above)

Oilers Jets stream if anyone interested:

Just noticed the Oilers have 15 camp invites on their roster! That’s out of 25 players. 7/14 of their forwards, 6/8 defencemen, and 2/3 of their goalies, are all invites. Kinda shocking to think that Edmonton only had 2 defencemen in their system that they could bring to the tournament and needed to find 6 invites on D to make their roster. I think we’d be losing our minds here over this team’s prospect pool and system depth if the Canucks announced that 60% of their Young Stars roster, and 75% of the defencemen, were invites.

Not sure if posted yet, but here are the tournament rosters for the 3 other teams (note: the Flames’ “prospects training camp” and the Oilers’ “rookie camp” are also going to be their rosters for Young Stars): Flames: https://www.nhl.com/flames/news/flames-open-2023-prospects-training-camp Oilers: Jets:

Straight apples to apples, just on pure player value, I’d have Pettersson ahead of Jack Hughes. Not by a huge difference, but still a fairly clear and substantial one, IMO. But if we’re looking at age (2 years difference), control (7 years remaining on current contract vs. expiring contract), and then there’s the Quinn Hughes factor (if Jack was here, with Quinn as his captain, it’s pretty much guaranteed the brothers would both continue to extend their deals in Vancouver and play here for their entire careers, and probably they’d push for Luke to join them at the first opportunity. With Petey, there’s no family loyalty/enticement factor, and I think he needs to see the team improving and be convinced the Canucks can actually win, before he commits to Vancouver for longterm/career). Add all that stuff together and I’d probably pick Hughes over Petey (unless an eight year extension get announced in the near future).

Looks like Wags saved me the trouble of writing profiles on the invitees: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/canucks-hockey/who-are-the-canucks-young-stars-prospect-invitees-7538515 I think Braeden Bowman and Jacob Maillet look like the ones to watch, when it comes to these invitees. I could see either (or both) of them earning contracts with Abby Brock Otten (OHL Prospects) rated Bowman and Maillet the 5th and 11th, respectively, best re-entries (from the OHL) for 2023 NHL draft. http://ohlprospects.blogspot.com/2023/04/sunday-top-10-2023-nhl-draft-re-entries.html?m=1 And the Canucks system could certainly use a RH power forward (Bowman) and, even moreso, a RH centre with defensive ability (Maillet). Maillet was voted the Western Confernece’s best defensive forward in the OHL coaches’ poll, as well as the “most underrated” player. Bowman was voted second most underrated. Bowman (6’2”, 194) had 33 goals and 39 assists (in just 54 games played) last season. Maillet (6’1”, 190 lbs) had 24 goals and 56 assists.

Looks like Dalyn Wakely, Colby Saganiuk, and Braeden Bowman are the only invites. I think the other less familiar names are recent Abbotsford signings. EDIT: oops, missed Jacob Maillet. He’s also an invite. (Literally the first name on the list and I skipped right over him. )

Capy Beara

I think some schools do a graduated reentry for the start of the new school year, so maybe those kids are on partial days this week? I know my kids only had one hour of school for their first day back. Or maybe they’re just playing hooky? Or they’re homeschooled? There are also a fair number of families (at least in my neck of the woods) who try to squeeze some extra vacation time out and will have their kids skip the first few days or even the first week back to school. The kids really aren’t missing much the first week. It’s basically just a daycare with very little actual instruction happening. At my kids’ school, they often don’t even start the new classes for a week or two, while the administration figures out the class divisions. My kids are just going back to their old classrooms and old teachers this week, and basically just hanging out with their friends and not actually doing much classwork, while we wait to find out their placements for this school year. One year, it took almost a month before the school finally got their **** together and started the new classes (hopefully they’ll do things a bit quicker this year). If we didn’t need them out of the house (which we do—summer break is too damn long!), it wouldn’t be any real loss, education-wise, to give the kids another week off while the school figures things out.

I could maybe see the Canucks offering PTO’s to a couple of the unsigned BC boys, like Danton Heinen (Langley) or Jujhar Khaira (Surrey).

https://www.capfriendly.com/browse/free-agents/2024/caphit/all/all/ufa?stats-season=2023 Every player in the above link who doesn’t have anything listed under the “team” heading is still available (the ones with a team listed are signed to PTO’s). EDIT: Well, maybe not “every” player on that list is available. Some of those guys are recovering from injuries/surgeries and won’t be ready in time for training camp. Kane (hip surgery) won’t be signing anywhere until some time midseason (last timeline I read was December). Puljujarvi had double hip surgery this summer (6-10 month recovery). And then there’s guys like Klefbom and Toews who won’t be playing at all next season.

Yeah, definitely have to take some of those advanced stats with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to bad teams. There are years when teams are just bad, and sometimes even their good players can end up posting some “bad player” stats (low WAR percentiles, negative value, etc). For example, I think everyone can agree that Fowler was the Ducks’ best Dman last season, and while I’m not necessarily a huge fan of his game, I still view him as a (bubble) top pairing D (maybe a #2/3D on a good team), who plays #1D minutes (24+ minutes/game), and historically gets pretty decent overall results (even while overused). I’d say he’s around a $6-7M player value (basically he plays a game equal to his $6.5M AAV contract) and I would expect him to provide something close to 2 WAR in a good season and on a better team/roster situation. Last season with Anaheim, the advanced stats (at least WAR-based, which is generally what all those player cards use) had Fowler at negative WAR and a negative player value (e.g., -$3.8M per Evolving Hockey). I tend to think those numbers more reflect a bad team with a really bad (team-wide) defence last season, rather than Fowler actually being a negative value/sub-replacement level NHL player. And probably you can extend some of the same sort of courtesy to Benoît, when looking at his WAR percentiles. Especially if (like on those player cards) it’s a 3yr weighted (by recency) average for a player who played the majority of his career NHL games (137 GP) in a single season (78 games in 2022-23) that just happened to also be a really bad team season. Not to mention him being 24 years old, significantly overused (averaging almost 20 minutes per game), and basically thrown to the wolves at times last season.

https://www.nhl.com/canucks/news/schedule--ticket-packages-for-2023-young-stars-classic/c-344757442

That could be a major factor. The Flyers’ poor player development has probably hindered the growth of a lot of their prospects over the past several years. It’s one of the first things the new management has attempted to fix in Philly. And when you read some of the reports on Ratcliffe, you see mention of him having “plateaued” in skating and having “failed to improve” his release and angles in shooting the puck These sound like the types of things a good development system would pick up on early and work to address with a young player (especially a 2nd round pick), through targeted efforts with their skating and skills coaches. Of course, it’s also possible that Ratcliffe just didn’t have what it takes, no matter what kind of coaching, training, and opportunities he was given. And he also has dealt with some injuries that’ve held him back (including broken ribs and a collapsed lung). So it might not just be Philly’s crappy development system. But whatever the case, when a kid goes from 4 points in 26 games (with Philly’s AHL affiliate) to 16 points in 21 games (with Nashville’s AHL affiliate), in the same season, it tends to suggest a change of scenery was needed.

No doubt Motte’s small, but even though adding him would slightly bring down the Canucks’ average height, this team would probably play “bigger” with him in the lineup. Motte would likely finish top-3 for hits among Vancouver’s forwards, even if he played just 4th line minutes for the Canucks next season. I’m not necessarily arguing for re-acquiring Motte. But if he came into camp on a PTO and earned a cheap deal, I’d have no issues with the Canucks adding him. I’d also have zero worries about his effect on the team’s size. He’d probably make these current Canucks faster, more physical, and harder to play against. (I’m just not sure whether that’s praise for Motte, or an indictment of this roster?)

I think the next captain will be Hughes but I also think the Canucks will take their time before making anything official. But when you read Tocchet’s comments from a few months ago, it give a good sense of where the coach may be leaning: “Huggy has really made that [upward] trajectory to be a captain. He’s done some things that are uncomfortable. He’s said some things that are uncomfortable that you have to do to say to teammates, or to a coach, or to put your balls on the line. That’s what captains do. “It’s not just about organizing a team party. It’s about putting your teammates first and also being able to go into a coach’s office and say, ‘Hey man, Tocc, you gotta back off in practice, I’ve got this. I guarantee the next game, we’ll be ready to play.’ I love that about him.” Hughes also has the respect of his teammates, as shown here (quotes from after an intense practice back in February): Hughes got his back up in a brief but testy shoving match with hulking winger Dakota Joshua to end the practice on a fitting note. “I’m a leader now (alternate captain) and I want everybody to get better,” said Hughes. “I need him (Joshua) to be the best he can be. And I need to push myself and other guys. We’re not getting enough and that’s why we’re not in the playoffs.” Said Joshua: “He’s making sure everybody is pulling on the rope and I loved seeing him get fired up like that. We could use more of that every day around here.” I don’t think Hughes would ever put his own name forward for the “C,” but he’d definitely embrace it and thrive in the role, if offered the captaincy. I think he’d welcome the chance to lead this team, he’s just too humble and classy to say outright that he wants it. But at the same time, Hughes has no lack of confidence or belief in himself, and, while he definitely plays it cool at times, when directly asked about the captaincy, I really get the sense that he inwardly burns for the opportunity to take on the mantle of leading this team. “To be a captain is an extraordinary honour,” said Hughes. “It’s really special, but to be honest, it’s not my main focus. Getting an ‘A’ (alternate) wasn’t my main focus either, and when they told me after the (All-Star Game) break that I was getting one, I was happy. “I have a lot of things on my mind. I want to be in the playoffs and keep taking my game to another level. They don’t need to do it (captaincy) soon. If they give it a year or two year, or whenever they decide to do it, I don’t think anybody feels pressure in here, or that they need to do something.” “I think a lot of it is that if you’re really an elite defenceman, you have to be competing and at least be in the playoffs. That hasn’t been something I can say. I don’t think this is the peak for me at all. I feel hungry right now, more hungry than usual.” https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/canucks-prolific-well-educated-quinn-hughes-captain/wcm/20b98226-3d81-444d-b5d6-54ac4b9756dc/amp/ https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canucks-captain-quinn-hughes-rick-tocchet

Not sure that was a defenceman or forward coming back, but yeah, definitely emulating Karlsson there (or JT when he’s in a mood shh… don’t tell Deb I said that).

Chiarot is a bad contract. The others, it’s hard to say. Used correctly and matched with the right pairings, Gostisbehere, Holl, and Walman can all be effective top-4’s playing 20+ minutes per game. (Well, Walman still needs to prove that last season was a coming out party and not a one year fluke.) But if they provide top-4 quality results, then $3-4M (each) is a bargain. There’s definitely potential for that group to struggle, especially if they’re used and paired in ways that really highlight their weaknesses. But if played to their strengths, and balanced with complimentary partners, I can actually see each of those guys surpassing the value of their contracts. Except for Chiarot, of course. That’s just a bad contract (recently ranked top-10 by The Athletic for worst contracts in the NHL). He’s only been positive value when deployed as a third pairing and paid under $1.5M. As soon as he’s paid big bucks and gets big minutes, his results are atrocious (his analytics have been consistently negative value the last 4 seasons). I know he’s paid for his size and physicality, but he just doesn’t seem to hockey very well when he’s used as a top-4.

I sort of expected Montreal to get paid more two years of 50% retention. But I think I might see more value in Petry at $2.3M AAV than some others do. It’s not a bad deal for the Habs. Gustav Lindstrom is a 24 year old RHD with 128 NHL games under his belt and a former 2nd round pick. He had a down year last season but had been tracking fairly well the previous two. And it’s always nice to add picks, although a conditional 2025 4th rounder doesn’t tend to hold much trade value (GMs tend to throw these around like they’re nothing). Not knocking it. I just think maybe the retention should have been worth a higher pick. For Detroit, they get a veteran RHD who can give them 22+ minutes/game, 30+ points, and 100+ hits and blocks a season, for just a $2.3M AAV price tag. I have little doubt that Petry will outperform that kind of cap hit, even at his age, and provide significant surplus value for the Red Wings.