skyfall

This game will feature 1/4 of the 2010-11 last place florida panthers playing for the canucks vs. A team backstopped by Lu. Lu should take this one easily.

damage control

We should start our 4th line. After all Dalpe scored yesterday and we need offense...

Hard to respect him when he gives a lot of spin and BS. Also its his job to pressure for higher returns and no player was more popular at this deadline than kesler. Having said that i think a new GM can come in and make a sick deal. We need a GM who doesn't take years to gather the courage to make deals like the Luongo trade.

Best not to go there. I dreamed of our team looking like sedins × 2, kesler, hodgson, grabner and nichuskin where torts can teach defense while letting the offense fly on their own. I feel Shirokov would have been a nichushkin if he started in the NHL right away. Conversely I feel nichushkin would be a shirokov if the canucks drafted him. That's dreamland though. In reality we have another half a season of playing along the boards until moves are made in the off season to hopefully bring in pure offensive talent.

Sounds like MG is smoking the reefer and blastin up the bob marley.

the only time I find gillis entertaining to listen to is when he is part of an auto-tune mashup. The rest of the time he sounds like ferris buehler's teacher.

Very true.. I think a more structured system is fine if adjustments can be made quickly and I don't see any quicker way than being hands-on. I don't see chicago or LA having a very complex system though. They seem to be based upon principles such as covering the middle slot on D at all times and going for fast breaks in transition. But hearing AV and bowness talk about switches from zone to man-to-man back to zone had me thinking wtf, why does it have to be that complicated esp when it's clear there's holes that the opposition is exploiting? Tort seems to believe more in principles which may be easier to manage in the playoffs when quick adjustments are required I see hockey systems like computer systems. Sometimes you want a mega powered machine that is capable of doing everything but it is slow to customize and doesn't utilize individual talents. Sometimes you want something simple you can change yourself but if it may not be ground breaking. But if you're a super user, you may be able to unleash the power from that simple system and work it better than one that is inflexible. When I see great playoff series, very rarely do I think system comes into play unless one team has a system that can be easily exploited which I felt AV's system did. Eventually the good teams just play hockey and use their hockey sense with basic organization. Players can't worry about which zone to man-to-man to zone switch iteration you're using at top speed... they gotta worry about covering the front of the net and clearing the puck out, even if one of their own players is out of position. I do think that Torts' lack of emphasis in system may be bad for the current team but with better talent I could see them being a team not to be effed with.

President Trophies who cares... I agree about going to the finals. To me though, AV is no better than DeBoer or Laviolette, guys who had a one and done team that went to the finals but don't seem to sustain success. I feel Torts as a leader with a great technical assistant would be better than AV and his reluctance to be hands on. Sometimes simpler is better and a complex system is not needed.

If this happens to Torts: -blown out 7-2 and 5-0 in back to back games in the first round to an 8th seed, - blows a 3-0 series lead against an 8th seed and requires game 7 OT to win -goes to 2 OT games and 6 games vs a weak nashville team -loses 8-1, 4-0 and 5-2 to a lower seeded Eastern team in the finals - loses 4-1 in the first round against an 8th seed the next year - loses 4-0 in the first round against a 6th seed the year after that Then I'll agree that Torts is crappier than AV. AV's X's and O's became a liability in that the team could not think for themselves and react to weaknesses in the system. The amount of times I've seen opposing players untouched in front of our net under AV is insane.

Yes that's true. I saw the video of the goal but even still, that goal was a deflected screen shot from an offensive zone faceoff. How could the flames not expect that we would put our fighters on to back us up? Even if it's a case where we play LA and they start Dustin Brown or Phx starts Hanzal, the other team should expect we would put fighters out too.

dunno if anybody posted this yet but Hartley claimed to put on his 4th line because they scored last game. Boxscore of last game (Calgary lost 5-2 so these are the only Flames goals): 3RD PERIOD 00:40 CGY Mark Giordano (6) Wrist shot - ASST: Paul Byron (8), Lee Stempniak (9) 5 - 1 WPG 11:59 CGY Lance Bouma (3) Deflected shot - ASST: Dennis Wideman (13) 5 - 2 WPG Do you see McGrattan, Westgarth, Butler, Jones, or Smid anywhere on that list? Hartley's BS exposed right here!

We try to get deadline rentals to win now and we get burned (Pahlsson, Roy, etc.) We get a top 10 draft pick in Horvat yet we aren't patient enough to wait. This is why I hate a lot of Canucks fans. They aren't happy with anything.

booth is like raymond... in the east he can be a sick player because there's slacker D but in the west he's just a run of the mill player who's overpaid.

I always laugh that so many ppl want to tank for picks yet after two games of losses ppl are freaking out. Can you imagine doing this for 82 games year after year? IMO Gillis is rebuilding in similar style to Sharks... getting younger and faster while still in playoff contention. I dunno who watches basketball but I feel the Canucks are like the Raptors. The Raps as a middling team traded their top paid but low ceiling player which meant others could share the load and they're doing better. The Sharks did that last year too shipping off a few players like Doug Murray and Clowe and they seemed to play even better. The Canucks could prob do the same if they didn't have so many NTC's.

I want more offensive forwards and have wanted them since Hodgson was traded.

A crappy contract is the ultimate NTC.

one time torts said kassian was good at times and was crappy at times. I think that pretty much sums him up.

Booth is improving so trade while the value is high.

I think the best trade chip we have is Tanev. I don't know if he'll be any better than a 4th defenceman, there's no NTC, his value is rising and he can be replaced by calling up Corrado. We have a top 4 D that's locked up with NTC's and I just think that a 5th/6th D will always expendable. If we're looking for offense, picks and/or prospects, I think that's the way to go. Realistically due to the cap I think that the return would have to be for a rookie/soph forward. I just hope that if a trade is made that it will benefit us for more than 2 years. I can see if we introduce Horvat, Shinkaruk and another promising young forward that the complexition of the team changes dramatically. We can rebuild on the fly like the Sharks. I would like to see this team become younger and faster.

Transformers (AV to Torts)

Hockey fans lost

Every coach can coach offense... but how well they do it is the question. The reason there seem to be bad coaches in the league and endless debate is that some seem to hinder more than help; they demotivate and suffocate players who might actually do better without a coach. It seems to be an exercise in risk tolerance and some seem to be more risk adverse than others. If the Canucks have great goaltending, would you as a coach let players take more offensive chances even if that means more defensive breakdowns or do you want to see as minimal defensive breakdowns as possible even if that means fewer scoring chances? If your gifted offensive young players are lacking on defense, how do you handle it? I guess that's why there's great debate right now.

Totally. MG looked like he had a gun to his head the whole time... he'll need a lot of Axe and Old Spice to deal with the buckets of perspiration.