Hedman

Done with this team. Cya.

Agree. Boeser might be ready to turn pro, but that doesn't mean that there aren't things in his game that he won't be able to work on there, like getting quicker for an example. Some guys from UND will obviously be gone next year, guys like Caggiula, Stecher and Schmaltz most likely. Boeser is going to get a lot of responsibility next year, and i think that could be good for him to be able to grow even more as a player. Will be interesting to see him and Tyson Jost together next year, worthy replacement for Schmaltz without a doubt.

If he can get a little faster there's no reason IMO to believe that he can't be a 1st line player in this league. Great hands, great shot, obviously has a nose for goals and overall just a great player. Definitely not a bad skater right now, but would love to see him get a little quicker. Will be interesting to see him next year with Tyson Jost if Schmaltz decides to go pro with the Blackhawks.

Not gonna happen, after all, he was drafted by Benning himself, it's "his guy" and he's doing well so far. I'm a little scared though heading into the trade deadline, especially since it seems like he will ACTUALLY try to make the playoffs as long as the "possibility" (what possibility lol) is there. You literally have no idea what Benning is going to do, and when a trade occurs, you often find yourself feeling very confused and very disappointed. The fact that this move looks like one that could lead to at least another trade, really scares me.

No matter how the trade pans out (obviously fearing and even expecting the worst), i will NEVER understand why Shinkaruk was given merely ONE game in the NHL since Shinkaruk IS one of the best goalscorers in the AHL, and we are currently the 3rd WORST team in Goals For in the entire league. It's absolutely mind boggling. It's true that Baertschi and Shinkaruk are 2 fairly similiar players, but it honestly shouldn't make Shinkaruk expandable since we actually have few prospects with legit top6 scoring potential like Shinkaruk has. Outside of Boeser, Shinkaruk was probably the only one. I also don't think that our top6 "is set" going forward, it's not like our top6 is stacked with overwhelmingly offensive talent. Sedins contracts will be up in 2 years, Hansen happens to have career year this year, Vrbata will most likely be gone in the off-season, and Baertschi is basically making his 1st strides as a pro player. Virtanen is cracking the 2nd line because he brings more of a physical presence to that line, not really because he has been offensively talented enough.

My thoughts exactly. I was a little worried first when i heard that he got injured, especially considering the hip-surgery he had last year. An "upper body injury" shouldn't be able to jeopardize his long-term career. Hopefully he'll be back soon.

Maybe not in this draft considering the depth of the 2nd round after the picks Boston etc made. But in some circumstances 2 early 3rds for an early 2nd could have got it done IMO, if we're trading with the right team.

Him being a captain is obviously not a bad thing, i'm just getting the feeling that our management overvalue this fact. While i didn't want a guy with attitude problems, like Pilon, i think attitude is overrated at this state of their careers. Brisebrois being a captain of his junior team isn't going to get him to the NHL, unless he's got the skill to make it. If you're a big defenseman, it's obviously important that you're a good skater. But you're also not going to make it on your skating alone. I'm just feeling that his upside isn't that high, but i'd love to see him prove me wrong. I also think that it's important for guys to play major roles for their teams in junior. Speaking of guys like McCann and Cassels, they both played for better teams, and better organizations. I think being part of a "winning" organization in junior is just as important as playing big minutes. There's a reason why the London Knights have produced so many great NHL-players, they're always competing. Cassels played on the 3rd line in the 2012-13 season, but since Boone Jenner "graduated" after that season, he was bound to play on the 2nd line the next year, which was a great opportunity for him. McCann will have a great team next year as well. It's all about if you think it's worth it or not. Personally, i think our prospect pool lacks quality, not quantity. This is a quantity pick for me. Not bad, not great. Getting one of the defensemen in the 2nd round would have been huge for us, considering how deep the 2nd round was going into day 2. You could only speculate what the price would have been, but i doubt it would have been more than 3rd+3rd/4th for early/late 2nd rounder. Other teams had the balls to make some moves for picks (the sh*tty return for Lack doesn't count here), we didn't.

Him being a captain for his junior team doesn't say too much tbh, at least not for me. Because again, he's playing on the worst team in the QMJHL, so i doubt there's a lot of guys who's qualified to be captain. Him being a captain (and a defenseman) might also be one of the reasons why our management are sold on this pick, which is something i really don't like. We know that they like their "attitude guys", we know that they love their "big guys that can skate". We also know that not a lot of QMJHL defenseman have made the NHL over the years. Not that i'm totally against drafting defensemen from the QMJHL, this year, i liked Zboril, J.Roy and Chabot, while Meloche could've been a solid 2nd round pick. Just don't think that Brisebrois is the type of guy you take with an early 3rd round pick, a low reward type of player. To me, it feels like management got desperate to pick a defenseman just for the sake of picking a defenseman, because they've been talking for months about getting more depth on defense, and they didn't pick a defenseman until the 3rd round, which should be seen as a failure. The chance of you getting a legit top4 defenseman in the 3rd round is pretty low. And as has already been mentioned, it's mindboggling that we didn't try to trade up when guys like Dunn and Kylington were picked in a span of just 10 picks.

I agree. His numbers in the QMJHL are underwhelming, which for me is concerning since the QMJHL is by far the weakest of the 3 CHL leagues. Not really good at anything. People will bring up that he played for the worst team in the QMJHL which made him "look bad", but that's honestly not going to help his development either. And his +/- wasn't exactly good at the WJC-18 either. I don't see much more than bottom pairing potential. Not to mention this is basically the guy we traded Eddie Lack for.

Really don't like this pick.

Seems like Schmaltz has been signed by the Blues: https://twitter.com/StLouisBlues/status/604039835897044992 Edit: His brother, Nick Schmaltz (Chicago 2014 20th overall pick) is committed to North Dakota though.

Even though Boeser wasn't a guy i really wanted, im completely fine with this pick, especially after watching Boston and Dallas picks, to name a few teams. The chance of your team picking the guy you personally want is pretty slim. I'm glad we didn't draft Carlo, or even Bittner. Kinda surprised we ended up with Boeser, but not disappointed at all, this coming from someone who has been questioning Bennings "draft philosophy" lately. I think prospects going the NCAA route tends to get underrated.

Demko isn't eligible for WJC.

You're not going to get a lot for a 25 year old AHL goaltender, even if they've had a great season overall, maybe a 3rd round pick, which is pretty much nothing. I'd rather see us trading either Lack or Miller, and give Markstrom a chance as a back-up. I wouldn't look too much into 1 bad performance either.

So you would rather just do nothing? If Lack plays like he did this year, he will seek at least 4M next summer when his contract is up. We clearly got ourselves a problem here. Do you want 2 goalies at a combined salary of 10M, or do you want Lack to hit the FA market? And i never understood the folks who suggested that trading Markstrom would be the best thing, because that makes completely no sense. Benning will be making a huge mistake if he doesn't trade either Miller (preferably) or Lack. Especially if he truly wants to be competitive year after year. As Dilettante said, trading Miller for anything that doesn't involve a cap dump, would be huge, even though there might not be a lot of teams (if any) interested. We signed him to be a starting goaltender (personally, i always thought the contract/signing was stupid, even though i respected Miller) but clearly he didn't live up to the expectations that comes when you're making 6M per year. Lack is arguably our best goaltender right now, and he's only making 1,150M per year.

https://twitter.com/Jake_Virtanen/status/594893346050453505 Jake Virtanen @Jake_Virtanen · 1 minför 1 minut sedan Very excited I get to join @UticaComets tomorrow and my first sniff of pro hockey! #ploffs

I didn't say he was great in playoffs. But again, was he the only one who wasn't great? No he wasn't, he's not exactly the reason why we lost the series, nor do i think he would've made a difference even if he were great. Our defence was horrible. It doesn't matter if he's older than those guys, because each and every player have a different way of reaching success. Mike Hoffman on the Sens made his 1st full season this year in the NHL. He's 3 years older than Baertschi. You make it sound like Baertschi is about to hit his prime, but his career has barely started. You're also comparing him with players that were either regarded as great, mature players in their draft years (like Horvat,Monahan and Bennett) and one of the best undersized players the last few years (Gaudreau). ffs he's only 2 years older than Monahan who is seen as a young and very talented 1st center. I don't even think Monahan was that good in the series, it took him like 3 or 4 games to get his game on, but he was obviously much better than Baertschi, even though Baertschi had 2 measly games. People are waiting for Kassian to take the next step, and he was drafted 2 years earlier than Baertschi. Yeah he's been playing with the Comets for less than 2 months, which isn't exactly much. He's been good down there, but there's a big difference between playing in the AHL, and playing in the NHL. 5 games is an extremely low sample size. Anyone who's already writing him off is outright stupid. He's got the speed, the skill, great offensive instincts.. all in all everything our 2nd line didn't have (until they demoted Vrbata, even though he didn't make a big impact there). Why wouldn't he be able to succeed? He's exactly what our 2nd line needs. He'll get a proper look next year, when he'll have more opportunities.

LOL! Dude he has played FIVE games for this team with limited ice-time. He had 2 goals in his last regular season game. He hasn't even been here for 2 months, ffs give him some time. After watching the playoffs, Baertschi wouldn't exactly be the player i would be worried about. It's not like everyone else showed up. We didn't trade that 2nd round pick for Baertschi because we thought he would be a 2nd liner this year. He will be given a proper shot next year. This season, it was all about him getting ready for next season, and getting used to the organization and the surroundings.

Ever heard of the Sedins? They're pretty good. They even went 2nd and 3rd overall..

I don't think Benning would have traded that 2nd rounder for Baertschi if we already had Ehlers. And to be fair, it's not like Virtanen has been amazing this year, so i'm not sure if the majority would've complained about it as of right now.

You can throw Jiri Hudler into that mix as well. He's just 5'10, and he's playing on their 1st line together with Gaudreau and Monahan. They also have Paul Byron in their bottom 6, who's just 5'7. The only forward on the Canucks who's listed below 6'0, is McMillan, and he's not even a regular with us. There's definitely reason to think why Baertschi is a better fit on the Canucks.

Doesn't matter if Canadas defensive depth was better than Swedens. I doubt Sanheim would've topped Forslings offensive numbers, no matter what country he would've played for. No other defenseman were even close to Forslings numbers. I would say he's got a point with Sanheim not making the team, even though he's eligible for next year as well. He's not a wonderchild. By no means is he the 10th best prospect outside the NHL. Nor is Domi the best, lol. In fact, there's no reason for him to rank Sanheim as high as he does. He's also ranking Sanheim above Nurse, like seriously? Interesting thing to point out, is that Button had Sanheim at 8th f'ing overall for the 2014 draft, in his last ranking prior to the draft. No other "expert" had him in that range, not even close in fact. It's just too obvious that Button's boner for Sanheim is way too big, and it's shining right through him. And Dvorak is getting carried offensively by Domi and Marner, so he makes the list at 7 over guys like Dal Colle and Larkin. A guy who barely went 2nd overall in last draft, ladies and gentlemen. Good job, Craig. But yeah, Sanheim is obviously a better prospect than Forsling right now, and i obviously don't think Forsling should've made a top30 list.

Demko looked really good, i don't think he looked shaky at all. Didn't play a flawless game, but he made some really nice saves when it mattered. Also, it's pretty hard to compare him with, say Husso, since their styles isn't even similar. Demko's got a very special goaltending style, i personally have a hard time comparing him with any goaltender in the NHL. Also, talking "stability and efficiency", Rinne is a goaltender who's quite floppy, but he's still making the saves, and is considered one of the leagues best goaltenders.

Are you really going to compare a top10 pick, who's just as good as any Swedish player coming out of the SHL the last decade, with a guy who's 3 inches shorter and fell big time in the draft because of that. And also a player that wasn't even drafted. Sure Hodgson isn't doing good right now, but one could argue that the back injury ruined his development. I agree that Virtanen will probably make the NHL. He'll turn into a bottom 6 player at least. Would i be happy if he only turned into a bottom 6 player, considering he was drafted 6th overall? Absolutely not. That's simply not good enough. I'm not saying that it will happen, but if it would, then i'd be very disappointed. I also think that "he could also be a bust because of his size and one-dimensional game" is a pretty lazy argument. As i said, he's nowhere near any of those guys that you mentioned in terms of size, and he's only 18, so you wouldn't expect him to be the best guy defensively when he's so gifted offensively. For an example, speed, physical play and a great shot sounds like all you need in a player. There are some important things in between though. If you look at Nylander, you see a guy that can make his line-mates better. He's got great hands, good speed, and very good vision. He's also playing a pretty un-predictable game, like Patrick Kane. One weakness Virtanen has is that he doesn't use his line-mates great and doesn't have the best vision, which could be the difference between him being a top6 guy or a bottom 6 guy. Nylander is by no means a 1st center lock. He is, however, playing as good as anyone could have possibly hoped for (probably even better). So it's looking pretty good for him from an early perspective. Virtanen hasn't really excelled his expectations, and his production might be lower than the realistic expectation ever was. It's awesome that he made Team Canada, and that he's making some noise there. Going to be exciting to watch him in the World Juniors.