smokes

I think he has turned the corner, his interview yesterday about his wrist being taped up in the beginning of the year was very revealing. I still think he needs to add a little more muscle to his frame but yeah in a year or two, I am expect him to be top 5 in the league.

Is it just me or has Petey seemed a lot more durable this year than ever before.

Rathbone would be trade bait. We already have a Quinn Hughes who is better and makes Rathbone redundant. Two small left handed D makes defense very weak. The Canucks have a boatload of offensive minded Dmen right now. So Rathbone makes no sense for me.

They just signed him to a two year contract. It's the beginning of the season, job security is not an issue right now for Green,

I don't see where the skepticism comes from. The Sedins won their trophies as 30 and 31 years old so to think OEL is past is prime who is still only 30 years old is nonsense.

People tend to forget that OEL played for a team that spent more time in the Dzone than in the Ozone. This tells me that defensively, he will be very sound. What impressed me is his offensive abilities. That drop pass to Pearson was like he had eyes in the back of his head. Just imagining him and Hughes quarterbacking two lethal defensive lines on the PP is going to be fun. I actually see him having his best NHL year.

I can see why so many people are angry but doubt Gadjovich will get claimed considering the type of other talent that are in the waiver wire right now. This is actually the best time to sneak him in. WHen you look at the D and now Sutter and Motte being out, defensive players are where it's at and Gadjovich doesn't have that. If there was a spot in the top nine open, then he would slot in well but not the forth line.

The agent is a lot more experienced than the players in this field. It is easy to talk the players into accepting a contract or not. Especially an agent like Berry.

The one who got the Canucks into the SCF, the one who made the playoffs most of the time they were gm

Not when we are talking about contracts. He'll run out an FA as quick as possible but he has a thing about making his own guys wait. His We ran out of time comment is a perfect illustration of that.

See I am worried about the Boeser bridge deal because how much more will we need to overpay when he needs to reup so quickly.

I thought we are talking about contracts.

There are lots we don't know but there are lots I do know. For instance there are many other GM's who are much better at handling players than Benning.

I agree with the things you say but I just don't think Benning is a good negotiator. This contract issue is on him.

That's the part of Benning's management style that makes me suspect. He is not known to be a great players GM from past reports and I wonder if this can be more management's fault than the players. As a fan I would rather blame management than the players because one after seeing the players the past couple of years, it is hard for me to imagine them being really hard to negotiate with and two because Bennign has more control of this proccess then Petey or Quinn. So fans blaming the two just rocks my mind.

I think those types of deals could have been done regardless. At the time of trading Schmidt, teams were well aware the Canucks did not have enough cap space to sign bot Hughes and Pettersson but somehow he ended up getting traded anyway. The Arizona deal was done because they wanted to shed OEL, if Benning wanted him so bad, he would have found a way to make it work regardless of having Petey and Hughes signed or not.

Focus on what with Petey? He was injured for most of the second half of the season.

This all has to do with agent and GM not with Petey and Quinn. Fans are acting like they don't want to be here when all they are doing is waiting for the green light. Petey even came to Vancouver before training camp.

Past GM's did that all the time because most of the time, the earlier you sign a restricted free agent like Petey or Quinn the cheaper you can get them for. Prices always rise, not fall. If he signed them earlier he could have got them at less than a cap hit than if he waited till now.

See that's where I see things backwards. He should have tried to resign Petey and Quinn as early as possible so they know how much money they can spend on FA's after that. The period where Petey was injured would have been a time to talk about contract extensions, instead Benning waited and ended up going into a market where comparables skyrocketed in salary.

So where is the blame on Benning? Benning taking his sweet time and takinging up cap space to sign fringe players instead of locking up your two best players when there was planty of cap space, Benning waited and caused this mess. I have been a Canucks fan my whole life and I have never seen a GM take so long on signing so many contracts. Previous GM's would have starting talking heavily during the season. Turing on Petey and Quinn is ninsensical, it it a GM and agent issue, they probably want to be in training camo too but these things are out of thier control. Especially since there hasn't even been rumours of contract discussions.

I was thinking the same thing.

Let there be Woo!

Nils Hoglander became my favorite Canuck this year. I love the fearlessness in him. He'll run guys into the board twice his size. He does all the dirty stuff and he has the skill to do something with it. He generates a lot of his own chances, you see him often generating a scoring chance out of nothing. At least once this year I am really hoping to see Petey and Hogs on a line together..

Does anyone happen to know when was the last time a player missed training camp and had a good season?