MrCanuck94

Wish we were able to get him, really liked him as a prospect.

In general it might not be, but specifically speaking about Tage, I do like the player and would take the chance on him.

Betting on his potential to make this contract seem like a bargain later on, pretty good risk to take imo for a unique type of player. Tage is only 24 and has good upside.

He's definitely improved, but looking at more advanced analytics from other people, for example, The Athletic, they have Horvat more at a middle 50-70 percentile defensive player. Hopefully he can continue to improve and be that reliable 2 way C that we need, especially if we trade JT. A good point in that article was that Horvat is streaky at times. Building consistency with a stronger forward group is going to be huge for Horvat moving forward, offensively and defensively.

Horvat has been below average defensively his whole career, so definitely not. The drop of the puck aside, the rest of the 40 second shift, every player on that list is miles ahead of Bo in terms of capability.

Because Horvat isn't close to anyone on that list in terms of skill level lol Horvat is a 2C. Not just in terms of usage, but in terms of capability. Everyone on that list is an elite C.

Quality of forwards on each unit likely affects that as well as the quality of ice time to get a rhythm going (starting the shift and having a full minute to minute and a half versus playing the last 30 seconds while changing on the fly). Garland was the only other forward with first liner metrics aside from JT and Petey. However, I definitely feel Boeser will bounce back this season and produce at a top line rate.

Just a heads up for anyone who hasn't seen the trailer, video premiers tomorrow Edit: I think the trailer only works if you watch the video on Youtube!

Prior to this season, EPs QOC was 95th percentile. Someone else posted Miller's and it was 83 percentile. Would have to see Bo's but EP and JM are definitely playing against high competition. I wouldn't really rate defensive draws as a statistic to judge QOC since many times players who are amazing at faceoffs are out there for that reason strictly, not the matchup. EP, Miller and other top players around the league produce against other top players, why is it always used as an excuse in Bo's case, along with the rotating wingers excuse? EP and Miller also have rotating wingers, but they have the ability to adapt and help raise the game of their wingers regardless of who it is with their playdriving and playmaking ability. Petey even produced as a rookie playing with Player Name and Goldobin.

Can I see the quality of competition analytics that state Bo played the most against higher quality of competition the past three years? Cause from what I've seen analytically and from watching games, it's been Pettersson and Miller taking on top 6 lines, or Motte's line. I'm gauging by Metrics. Bo has had similar metrics since his third season in the league, which fluctuates from the TOI increase, which would indicate that he's maxed his ceiling. He has however, improved his defensive play to be close to average, which is a huge jump from what it was. Of course I would be delighted if he took another step in his development again this year, anything to help us win a cup!

I've always considered Miller average defensively as well. The weird thing is, I actually think he's good defensively when he's on his game (hence the Selke votes) but his defensive efforts have been inconsistent. IMO I do think overall he is better defensively than Bo. Good to see a huge improvement in his defensive game last season according to that chart. Hope it continues under Bruce. Luckily for Miller, he's elite offensively

Miller 27 season: GP 69 G 27 A 45 P 72 Horvat 27 season: GP 70 G 31 A 21 P 52 The prior 4 seasons Miller scored at a 52 point pace and Horvat a 59 point pace. Gauging the production is a fair argument, but I'd argue Horvat has maxed out his skillset ceiling while JT took longer to mature and realize his. He definitely has better hockey IQ and playmaking abilities than Bo. There's a reason Petey and Miller were playing more than Bo when all three were C's, and it's not because Bo is more defensive, they're just better. Also, like mentioned above, Bo has not been a defensive center in his career so far. His defensive analytics went from poor to average over time. It's great that he's improving, but he hasn't been a 2 way center in the NHL. I'm hoping he can keep improving his defensive game and become one however.

Horvat is a better goal scorer but O'Reilly is a better playmaker and drastically better defensive player.

I avoided cards from his injury times, but Petey is our best center, period. He plays against the highest competition, he has the best offensive metrics and he's a Selke candidate on the defensive end of things.

I don't buy the "shutdown center" tag unless I get a quality of competition analysis. From what I've seen, Petey and Miller's lines have been going head to head with other teams top lines. If it wasn't them, Motte's line was shutting down other teams. Bo had weak defensive analytics early in his career and I believe they are about average now, he's definitely not close to a top defensive guy or a Selke candidate. Bo was 218th in 5on5 scoring per 60. He scored a lot on the powerplay, and a lot of it was from quality feeds from JT Miller and his amazing passing skills. Stamkos plays on the wing, Draisatl plays the wing, does that mean Horvat is better than them? They're versatile players that can bring much more and be moved around. JT always had a high ceiling, it took him longer to realize it because of his maturity, which has been stated by his previous coaches. Bo hit his ceiling about 3 years into his career and has had similar metrics since, which adjust with the amount of TOI he is given. It's important to look at a player's skillset and production. He's a solid, shoot first, second line centre. That doesn't really compare to our two superstar centers.

What? Bo has had very weak defensive analytics since entering the league. He's not even close to a Selke candidate lol. Petey and Miller are better than him in every facet of the game except for faceoffs, period. They're superstars and Bo is a 2C. He's a jack of all trades, master of none type player. Has a good shot but not any elite attributes, except for faceoff taking. Except for when he was injured, Petey has been one of the best C's in the game since entering the league. His only weakness is faceoffs. Analytics fully support this. Don't get me wrong, he's a solid 2C, but let's not overhype our players more than what they are.

I could care less about proving a point or being a 'Benning hater', I actually supported the guy the first half of his tenure here, but him and his management team's weaknesses became glaringly obvious. I don't spend a lot of time on these forum's so I'm not worried about pushing a certain agenda. I'm not sure where any lie was said tbh. - Sure you can argue that if Boudreau was here from the start, we could've been better, but he didn't make the change, so that's on him. - I never said he hasn't made good moves, I actually liked the Miller trade and OEL trade, but they weren't trades that lined up with our strategy which as I mentioned, was a weakness of the management group. - We drafted some gems, but after 8 drafts, we have only 7 players to show for it on our roster, and only 1 defenceman. That is a poor record. - Imo our trading was average, we did a poor job of recouping assets for players who were becoming UFA or didn't fit the age of our team. As mentioned, we also did a poor job of making moves that fit with our timeline. - Free agency was a tire fire. I liked the Miller and Vrbata signings, but we mostly overspent to bring in overpriced free agents to try and be competitive, which created negative value in players that we couldn't move and kept us cap strapped as a bottom 5 team. - Good teams are cap strapped while having a cup contending or close to cup contending quality roster. We have been cap strapped as a bottom 5 team almost every year. That is not the same. - I'm not praising JR and PA because of their player moves, because there is not enough to go off of yet. That's why I'm saying we need to have patience. But with the few moves they have made, they are in line with the vision they have laid out since day 1. - I've already mentioned the behind the scenes work the new management has done to completely restructure the organization and make it an attractive destination, so I won't get into that. - The new regime making hockey more enjoyable and the organization more attractive is not an opinion or confirmation bias. The Michael Buble interview was good enough to let you know how the players inside the organization felt and how much happier they are. Not just that, he mentioned how the positive change is noticed by players around the league and how that has made Vancouver more attractive. You can just see in the players body languages how much more they enjoy coming to work. - OEL chose Vancouver because of the city and Loui wanted to play with the twins I believe. When else have we had free agents or players in general choose Vancouver over any other city during the Benning era? Kuzmenko had 20 teams after him and his agent mentioned that Alvin and Boudreau were huge in bringing him to Vancouver. Mikheyev took less money to come to Vancouver and also suggested to Kuzmenko that he should sign with Vancouver. - The night and day reference was towards the structure and morale of the organization. We are finally a highly skilled organization when it comes to personnel talent and we have a progressive structure in place. - Once again, he never said the defence is good, he said the defence should be good enough to make the playoffs if Rathbone takes a step and can play good minutes in the NHL. Our forward group and goalies should be good enough to carry a weaker defence. He said there is a lot of work to do before we are contenders. The work I assume is increasing the asset value within the organization, strengthening the right side of our defence and drafting/signing more prospects so we have quality ELCs to support our core during our contention years. Not a lot of player movement moves have been done so far, but let's hope for the best and believe in this quality management group being mentored by a hall of famer. At the end of the day, we all just want a Stanley Cup, and I hope we are able to achieve that goal sooner than later. Go Canucks

What mll said. He didn't call Poolman a top 4 D, just said he could play top 4 for us, our RD depth sucks.

A lot of this is mistaking patience with ability. JR and PA haven't done much because our hands are tied with the cap like they mentioned many times. JB created his own problems by signing bad contracts and making trades that didn't make sense to the team's timeline and diminishing our asset values. JR & PA are having difficulties fixing the issues that were put on them. That should show how bad our previous regime was at handling things. He didn't say the defence isn't an issue, that is the biggest issue according to our management, and that thought process has been consistent since day 1, especially to fix the right side. JR literally said in this interview that there weren't any quick fixes in FA so we will have to go the trade route. He said that, if Rathbone takes a step, with the improvement of our forward group and if Martin can handle the back up role close to the short sample size from last season, then we should be able to make playoffs. Not win as in we're ready to compete for the cup. The way he said the Poolman quote, I don't think he really called him a top 4 guy, but said he could play top 4 for us (which shouldn't be hard with our lack of depth lol). JR said again in that podcast, we'll either sign Miller if he goes down on his ask or trade him before the next TDL, nothing has changed and we're not keeping him and losing him for free next offseason just to compete for a playoff spot. Like I mentioned above, we can't make poor trades or trade assets to dump salary because we have a vision to compete in 2-3 years, and to do that, we need all the ELCs we can get on the roster to push us over the top. We have no capital to waste on staying competitive now. Let's not sugarcoat the previous regime, it took 8 years and we still didn't have a team that could make the playoffs. We had no strategy, we had no direction, communication levels were poor, ex-Canuck players were pissed to the point life long Canucks were leaving the organization, our asset levels sucks, morale within the organization was low, and the Michael Buble interview about the players and previous regime was the cherry on top of it all. We may have not done a lot on the player movement side, but it is night and day with this regime. All the facility upgrades, players are choosing to play here instead of other attractive markets, we have quality staff that literally chose this organization because of JR, communication levels within the organization and with media/fans is phenomenal, and the list goes on. Let's have some patience, there's still a lot of off season left and I sure have great faith in this management group to get us to the next level.

Fair point, but that's the difference between last regime and this regime. This regime is focused on competing in 2-3 years, which means we need some good ELCs to put us over the top. We need all the picks and prospects we can get to ensure our best shot at that. Previous regime didn't leave us that opportunity to spend assets otherwise. Like JR mentioned, he's not opposed to using assets to move cap, he did it with Fleury. But we're not in a position to do that right now.

He's been our most consistent center because our bottom 6 C's have been inconsistent due to our previous regime struggling to find a 3C or 4C. Petey and Miller rotated at 1C until they both had to play C due to our lack of depth. Horvat isn't versatile enough to play wing, so he's been our only C to stay there. He hasn't produced at a high rate 5 on 5, a lot of his scoring came from the power play. Last season, he was 218th in even strength points per 60 among all players. I would also argue Bo is more of a rush player than a play driver. RNH is versatile enough to play LW when Draisatl plays 2C to keep him in the top 6. Oilers don't need him at 3C since they have Mcleod. I like the Brayden Schenn comparison, good find! I'm hoping Bo can keep improving his defensive play and maybe even take another step in his development to make our team even stronger. We need it if we want to be cup contenders!

Horvat has a rotating cast of wingers because he's not the type of C that makes his wingers better, you have to find the perfect fit whether it's more grinding type wingers or a playmaker/2 way winger. At the end of the day, unless he takes another step in his development this season, he's a 60 point center, average play maker and average defensively. If he signs 8 years, there's a good chance that he'll take a step back and be a 3C for his age 32-35 years, is that really worth it for a 7 mill C? Or is JT more worth a 8 mill contract because even with a step back, he would be a 2C for around 8 mill and he makes his line mates better and drives play? I'd argue Horvat's value comparables are RNH, Strome and Trochek. Sure he's better at faceoffs, but is that a 2 million value difference? RNH is the best contract comparable when it comes to production and signing a 8 year deal with the team that drafted you in your later 20's.

Miller - 8-9 mil AAV Horvat - 5.5-6 mil AAV

A legit 2-way middle 6 forward. Let's go!

As much as I like Miller, I would love Malkin here. We could literally multiply our assets and stay competitive without missing a beat. For example, if we land something close to the TDL NYR offer, we lose Miller, but bring in Malkin, Lundkvist, Chytil and a 1st 2023. I'm all for it.