A contrarian's view of our team

[rb4u]

Buy low and sell high. That is one of the fundamental principle behind most successful investors. Can this method be applied to team building?

It is my opinion that the window of opportunity for our current core has already passed us by. The best chance we had were the 4 years from 2009-2012, cumulating in the 2010-2011 season when we were 60 mins away from the Cup. Our current team is built around an aging 1st line of the Sedins and an injury prone 2nd line of Kesler and Booth. We have a veteran goaltender in Lu and a rising star in Schneider. Our defence is without a true number 1, but comprising of 4 number 2s (Edler, Bieksa, Garrison & Hamhuis). Our young prospects other than Tanev are 1-2 years away from maturing and contributing in a meaningful way (Kassian, Schroeder, Jensen). Not to mention a number of role players who are due for UFA (MayRay, Lapierre, Higgins, Alberts). Our path ahead is filled with roadblocks. CHI/ANA/LA in the West, with PIT/BOS awaiting if we should make it out of the meat grinder of Conference Playoffs. Even the most optimistic fan would be fooling themselves into thinking that we have a reasonable chance to hoist the Cup this year.

The compressed schedule has created a situation where most teams are in the playoff race by the time the Trade dateline comes around. The market for players has tightened up and compensation skyrocketed (as witnessed by PIT's trade with DAL). The question I think we should ask should be:

1) Do we have a reasonable chance of winning it all this year?

2) How many years left do we realistically have with this core?

3) Does the organization have a wealth of young prospects ready to jump in and fill the holes?

3) Can the organization afford to lose valuable assets for nothing when UFAs leave?

I contend that the answer to all the questions above is a resounding NO. We do not have a reasonable chance this year and the window is closing rapidly for our veterans. Our organization has been weaken by trade deadiine rentals over the last 4 years. How long more can we afford to mortgage the future of this club in a futile attempt to make "one last run"? Just see what this strategy has done to the Calgary Flames and the complete rebuild (4-5 years) which their fans are facing.

But the future is not as bleak as I have painted so far. I envision a team where the Sedin twins playing supporting role as our 2nd line, Kesler anchoring a shutdown line and a goaltending duo of Lu and Lack. The only way to achieve this is to careful manage our assets and not allow players to leave this organization for free (case in point Erhoff, Malhotra, Torres, Mitchell). I would propose selling off expiring assets to the highest bidder

1) MayRay (UFA on a 20 goal pace, possible late 1st round pick)

2) LaPierre (UFA 4th line agitator, possibly late 2nd rounder or early 3rd rounder)

3) Higgins (UFA shutdown forward, late 2nd rounder)

4) Ballard (Depth offensive DMan, possible 2nd rounder)

At the same time, trading the following players by the next draft:

1) Schneider (as much as I love his play, he will fetch the highest return for us compared to Lu)

2) Edler (he has been as shell of his former self since his back injury)

In return we would be looking for A- prospects as 1st liners. Specific Western team to target will be Edmonton with their 3 top Centres (either one of Gagner or Eberle since I would consider Nugent to be an untouchable). Edler with picks or one of our top prospects should be enough to get this deal done. With Schneider (and picks/prospects), I would target teams from the East with the following players of interest:

Ryan Strome - NYI

Nino Niederreiter - NYI

Filip Forsberg - WAS

Jonathan Huberdeau - FLA

Nick Bjugstad - FLA

Andrei Loktinov - NJJ

Cody Hodgson - BUF (just kidding...)

That would leave us with forward lines of

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows (as our top 1 for next year and 2nd line in 2014 and beyond)

Kassian + players from Schneider and Edler trade (as our 2nd line and potential top line in 2 years)

Hansen-Kesler-Booth (as our primary shutdown line)

Fourth line based on our prospect pool or free agency

Defense and goaltending of

Hamhuis - Bieksa

Garrison - Tanev

Third pairing based on our prospect pool & free agency.

Lu + Lack

I believe that a reload is the most logical way of managing our assets and extending our window by another 3-5 years. What do the rest of you think?

[SkeeterHansen]

Considering our "window" is "closing" as we age, I think it'd be silly not to load up and make a run this year. Most of the core pieces from 2011 are still here, we just need proper depth and a little bit of Larscheid magic.

[Aladeen]

What you are saying does make sense, however there is no chance at all we are sellers at the deadline. Teams that get fleeced are ones that think they are a peice or two away from the cup. Florida and Islanders realze they are looking for the long term not a patch job at the deadline. There is no way they will be fleeced of their young guns at this point, they would rather have teams that grow and mature together.

This plan would have a better chance of working at the Draft, if these teams loaded up on picks/prospects at the deadline and are looking to solidify competative rosters at the draft.

[rb4u]

What you are saying does make sense, however there is no chance at all we are sellers at the deadline. Teams that get fleeced are ones that think they are a peice or two away from the cup. Florida and Islanders realze they are looking for the long term not a patch job at the deadline. There is no way they will be fleeced of their young guns at this point, they would rather have teams that grow and mature together.

This plan would have a better chance of working at the Draft, if these teams loaded up on picks/prospects at the deadline and are looking to solidify competative rosters at the draft.

[brownky]

I think we should part out what we can this deadline if there is a decent return. Judging by our inconsistent play and injuries throughout this year and winning completely hinging on the goaltender, even if we make it in, in good position, it's unlikely we will go very far unless our goaltenders are both screaming hot the entire time.

A better act is to load up on prospects in a deep draft year solving what we can of the cap issues, pick up a free agent or two when the summer rolls around, then we're in a better position org-wise to take a real crack at it next year, with everybody (hopefully) healthier.

[canuktravella]

id love for vancouver to target these players charlie coyle, brandon gormley, boon jenner, ty rattie drew shore, tomas jurco, nino neiderrieder, gudbranson, dmitri orlov carter ashton

as for loktionov he could of been had for a fifth rounder huberdeau's cost would be astronomical try schneider hansen 1st no thanks but he is real deal

if we can get any of these players and a 2nd rounder and ufa roster player for loungo please do so.

[RunningWild]

Cam Charron ‏@camcharron 3h

Since '08, Cup winners have combined for a Corsi Tied % of 54.2%. Four teams above that this season: LA, Vancouver, Montreal and Boston.

[VanCityNuck]

OP's post makes me angry

[rb4u]

Cam Charron ‏@camcharron 3h

Corsi tied is puck possession numbers when the game is tied. It's the best indicator to determine a teams long term success according to stats nerds.

Things to keep in mind knowing this team is 1 of 4 teams with the best puck possession #'s:

- Canucks are 5th in league with man games lost to injury (MGL). LA, Boston and Habs all have fewer MGL than Van. In fact, LA and Boston are 27th and 29th respectively with MGL.

- Canucks are in the top 4 puck possession teams without 2 of their best puck possession players in the lineup(Booth/Kesler). Booth and Kesler were the 4th and 5th best possession forwards in Van last season (behind only Sedins/Burr). Kes has played 7 of 33 games this yr. Booth has played 12 of 33 games this yr.

There's no way you can tell me the Canucks are not a good team this yr and should sell their UFA's. They are riddled with injuries and are still pumping out grade A underlying numbers. This is a really good team.

[RunningWild]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Corsi numbers are a great tool, but which teams (BOS/PIT/ANA/CHI/LA) do you see us match up well against?

[rb4u]

ANA is riding extreme SH% and SV% combined with pathetically low team corsi. Meaning, they are due for a massive regression. Massive. Over an 82 game season they don't make the playoffs IMO. So forget them.

Pitts is riding a league high SH% and league high PDO, they have average puck possession #'s. They're due for a large regression as well IMO.

Bos and LA are scary and healthy as usual. For the last few years, they've always been healthy (relative to league). Where as Van is the opposite - always in top 10 with MGL. They're both incredibly strong puck possession teams with great goalies. In the west, LA is pretty much the only team I don't want to face.

Chi is unknown to me. I can't gauge them, but they're also traditionally healthy and historically get the 'calls' from officials. For those reasons, I'd be scared of another matchup.

[RunningWild]

I guess the fear for me is that we have to be that much better than all of the above teams, due to the invertible biased calls that will be called against us during the playoffs (call me paranoid).

That plus the fact that we haven't got an abundance of depth in the minors to continually give up picks/prospects for playoff rentals. I guess an alternative is to forgo the 5-7 picks which we could possibly get from trading MayRay, Lapierre, Higgins, Ballard & Alberts and risk having them walk as UFA. The reload can still happen in the off season with moving Schneider (sniff) and Edler plus prospects/picks which we inevitably have to package to get the types of players we need. But that would mean that the cupboards will be all the more bare if such a scenario should happen...

[rb4u]

I have that fear as well, it's a founded fear. I don't care what anyone says, I've tracked the officiating since the SCF and there are some guys who flat out don't like the Canucks. You can bet Gillis tracks them as well and it's why he and Av have been vocal about the officiating. It's also probably why we haven't seen Sutherland since the "Av call" against Cgy. These 'haters' are also usually the guys who get to officiate in the playoffs. They will have to overcome officiating in the playoffs - no doubt about it.

[canuck_trevor16]

no selling

[Burlinbert]

1) Do we have a reasonable chance of winning it all this year?

- Yes we do, in a 7 game series the Canucks have a chance against any team in the NHL. I think they can make it to the Western Finals. Thats only 8 wins away from the cup. If we get the lucky bounces and the refs call the games right, we got a reasonable chance compared to most of the 16 teams that make it to the playoffs

2) How many years left do we realistically have with this core?

Sedins got a good 4 years left in them as 60+ point players. These swedes are durable(Lidstrom, Sundin)

3) Does the organization have a wealth of young prospects ready to jump in and fill the holes?

-Kind off for the short term Jensen, Kassian, and Schroader fill be able to fill holes not necessarily on the 1st line though

3) Can the organization afford to lose valuable assets for nothing when UFAs leave?

Yes we can things have changed with the cap system. In a couple of years players are going to be moved all over the map, wait till this off season teams are going to be unloading lots of talent ,

this is what I hope the team looks like for 2014-15(salaries not exact)

CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER

My Custom Lineup

FORWARDS

Daniel Sedin ($6.100m) -------- Henrik Sedin ($6.100m) -------- Zack Kassian ($0.870m)

Luongo Trade--------------------- Ryan Kesler ($5.000m) ------- Alexandre Burrows ($4.500m)

Jannik Hansen ($1.350m) ----Jordan Schroeder ($1.451m) ---- Nicklas Jensen ($0.894m)

Maxim Lapierre ($1.500m)-------Brendan Gaunce ($1.088m) --- Free Agent Pick up

DEFENSEMEN

Alexander Edler ($5.000m) / Dan Hamhuis ($4.500m)

Jason Garrison ($4.600m) / Kevin Bieksa ($4.600m)

Chris Tanev ($1.851m) / Luongo trade

GOALTENDERS

Cory Schneider ($4.000m)

Eddie Lack ($0.750m)

RETAINED SALARY TRANSACTIONS (0.214% of upper limit)

Roberto Luongo ($0.053m—1.0%) Keith Ballard ($0.042m—1.0%) David Booth ($0.043m—1.0%)

------

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)

(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)

SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $54,290,500; BONUSES: $162,500

CAP SPACE (20-man roster): $10,172,000

[canuck_trevor16]

Canucks should NOT sell...........Flames should be the one doing this any team who make the playoff can win

[Burlinbert]

A contrarian is a person who takes up a position opposed to that of the majority, regardless of how unpopular it may be.

+1 if you had to look it up....Dont lie

[RunningWild]

LOL. Good to know that I'm not paranoid.

Higgins & Lappy I can see coming back. Maybe even Albert too since he seems to be a good foot soldier and compensation will be low. It's MayRay with his hot season and expected 4 million payday that I would want some return on, since there is almost zero chance of him coming back.

[rb4u]

Ya, I can also see Lappy and Higgy back - probably taking some type of discount. I can't see Mayray re-signing - this is because of something Squire Barnes said. He said Raymond wants to play closer to home (likely Winnipeg).

[CanucksFanMike]

I think we should maybe make a few smaller deadline deals to fill some holes, but with the cap going down this summer, we don't want to trade good prospects and high picks for players who we will be forced to let walk this summer because of cap reasons. Remember, there is no guarantee that we will win this year even if we make a bunch of trades.

I think we should compete and do our best in the playoffs and then regroup in the offseason, adjust to the new cap, and then work to build our way up again in the next few seasons.