How would you like the Canucks to be built? Hawks or Bruins/LA/Blues

[bluesman60]

Offensive puck posession team all the way. Fun to watch. Sedins and Burrows will rebound with this style of game. Use all 4 lines, why just use 3 and the 4th occasionally. Use that 4th line to our advantage with guys who can score.

A bottom 6 of guys like

Higgins Richardson Santorelli/Kassian

Booth Matthias Hansen

would put us where we were a few years ago in terms of the great bottom 6 we had that was fun to watch. You can mix those guys up too because none of them are purely 4th liners. We have all these great bottom 6 guys why not give them roles and actually win some games.

No Sedins on the PK, they are too valuable.

Forget being the tough team, I liked being the disciplined team that could take it and make guys pay on the PP. It seems like we gave up being fun to watch for being bigger and tough, we haven't been as successful since and it's time to go back to our old way. The Canuck way!

You won't win many playoff games if you are not going to play a physical tough style. The refs put the whistle away during the playoffs so your PP opportunities are limited. We have all witnessed that and the defeat that accompanied it. Torts showed this team that they can play team tough...but we do not have a big enough team to continue playing that way all the time.

I will agree with you that the Sedins' being used on the PK. They should be used just enough to keep them in the game. There is no point in losing them to a fractured foot or broken wrist from blocking shots on the PK.

[6string]

Brawks. Hybrid of both. Come up with your own identity.

in a perfect world...

[6string]

well we are already hated anyways so the bruins style would be fitting, beating the snot out of them and winning, nothing feels better than that in a contact sport!

[6string]

It'll have to be the Bruins. No way, this team is going to find a Toews or Patrick Kane type. We'd even be lucky to find anyone like Hossa or Sharp.

best reply yet, what gets lost in all of this is the bruins are a great skating team over 4 lines, they keep coming and coming and often trade chances in a free style game if ya been watching them over two series against fast skating team like detroit and montreal.

assembling the team as you mentioned like chicago is once in a twenty five year cycle ( pulling numbers ) as opposed to boston or the kings with a couple of studs and a strong supporting cast.

[Bissurnette]

That's Chicago's style, whereas the Bruins have size on all four lines. The difference is even more notable on their D.

Not really. The Bruins have a ton of skill and speed in their top 6. Bergeron, Marchand, Rielly Smith, Krejci.. non of these guys are big, but they're all really skilled.

[Razors_Edge]

We need to win in the playoffs, we have already demonstrated our ability to win in the regular season and go nowhere big tough and mean please, roll in at 8th for all I care then take care of business!!

[Quoted]

Teams develop an identify through a natural evolution (drafting, trades, coaching to players strengths, etc.). Trying to copy a team's style using different players, management, and coaching doesn't seem to ever work. In the end, it's not that complex of a game and a lot of things need to come together for a team to win a cup (including a lot of luck, good fortune with injuries, etc.).

One thing to say, though, is that the Bruins seem to be becoming less and less classy (spears, cheap shots, the latest with the water, etc.). If that comes along with their model, no thanks.

[Popinjay]

To be honest I don't really care as long as we pick a style that we want the team to play/be and stick to it (by we, I mean management). Ever since we lost the cup in 2011 the team has been chasing styles and trying to force a style of play similar to whatever team was recently most successful. First we were focusing on speed and skill, then we try to become the bruins because we lost to them in game 7 so obviously things have to change, then it not really size and toughness that we need, but it's to become younger, because now that's the key.

Chasing an identity is not the way to go. Management needs to pick an identity based on what they believe will win in this league and stick to it. In the last couple years, MG was like a desperate stock trader, buying the latest fad stock and getting burned. Way too scatter brained with no clear path forward

[aGENT]

They're all the same "style". Big, skilled and fast players with quality depth. They just have varying amounts of those elements spread throughout their lineups.

[Forsy]

Build on hockey intelligence to anticipate loose pucks and win 1v1 battles. Size or speed won't matter as much as that.

Intelligence and Timing will consistently beat both strength and speed.

[Phil_314]

Like it or not, we'll have to be realistic and go with what we have. Modelling the team to fit another team's mold is exactly what this team shouldn't be doing, since that's literally playing the other team's game.

As many have said, I think the IDEAL would be to construct a Hawks-style team, but they only came together due to YEARS of terrible play and lucky drafting until 2009 when they missed the playoffs since 2001-02 (foundational pieces drafted in that losing era: Duncan Keith 54th, 2002; Seabrook 14th overall, Corey Crawford 52nd, Byfuglien 245th, 2003; Brouwer 214th, 2004; Hjalmarsson 108th, 2005; Toews 3rd overall, 2006; Kane 1st, 2007; Saad (43rd), Shaw (139th), Kruger (149th)).

Of course, the development of their top complementary players was done terrifically and they also signed Hossa and had Sharp prior to this regime, but without these early picks it's tough for our team to draft such foundational players. There's also no guarantee that we don't end up like the Oilers instead.

While it will be tough to replicate this and create a similarly tough, skilled young core that competes at such a high level through drafting without sucking for years, I think what we can and should do is to try again to build a hybrid team that is skill-centric and capable of making the right plays at the right times esp. at the top, but which also has speed and toughness built AROUND this skill.

To do so, I hope that after trimming any dead weight from the roster, the new GM will keep on doing what MG did with money-ball signings/ purchasing trades (e.g. when he essentially stole Ehrhoff), and that he and the coach will not be shy about putting kids into the lineup when they're ready. As well, I hope Jim Benning would bring new insight on proper drafting, but that he won't be fixated on strictly building a big, tough team but that he also wouldn't be afraid to look for Krejci's and Marcus Kruger's, who aren't necessarily the biggest, but provide skill to ensure good balance between setup men and scorers, much like what the Bruins have up front.

Going forward, it'd ideally be

Burr* - Hank - Jensen
(decent mix of skill, mobility and grit; wouldn't mind a bigger guy instead of Burr though)
Danny - Kes - Kass (good mix, Kes and Kass to create space for Danny's skill)

Matthias - Horvat - Higgins (speedy, tough, two-way line that can score some)
Archibald - Richardson - Zalewski (wouldn't mind it if they went all bigs on the 4th line)
Dalpe (skilled 13th forward)

Hamhuis - top offensive D-man (Hammer to stabilize the back end for a #1 D)
Garrison - Bieksa
(hoping their WC time together helps them build chemistry as a 2nd tough-minutes pairing with two bombers)

Stanton - Tanev (solid 3rd pairing minute munchers who can move up the lineup)

[brownky]

I'd like it to be built Canucks style.

Uptempo, offensive, big, fast and skilled. Not every player needs to be 'fast skilled and big', but the team needs to have that identity. Bure wasn't a 'big' size player, but he'd hack and whack with the best of them. Guys who know which way the net is, and instead of trying to walk it in all the time someone who isn't afraid of shooting it.

AND hitting the net. Key part of that. Kesler.

[Nuxfanabroad]

Late '70s Habs..but BETTER! PO's like late '80s Oilers on offense; '90s Devils on defense. Then I win a POWERBALL lotto, so I can catch any game I'd like.

[combover]

2011 vancouver canucks. thats the model this team should try to rebuild. speed skill and grit.

[Puck'nAnimal]

I want to see a team built WITH SIZE AND SKILL. Surely that is attainable. If we are to win in the Pacific Division, we need to physically be able to match up with the teams who will bang and crash and still have enough skill and speed to take the puck to the net. Chicago is in a different conference which is a whole different animal. It does no good to build a team based on skill that can be pushed around. You need the size as well as the skill.

[Honky Cat]

Interesting to see in the Montreal/Boston series,that speed is the Kryptonite to the Boston defense.....I think the Canucks will have to be a hybrid of styles (we have the Sedins ,who are arguably,the best two puck possesion players in the game)....What is crucial,is that we have a GM and coach that share the same vision of what the Canucks are going to be .....

[TOMapleLaughs]

The '94 Canucks team was a blend of styles and skills. There really is no secret to what makes a team successful. It's not team emulation. It's not selecting players of one type. It's just a matter of getting the best players for the roles they're in.

But any contender needs:

2 top centers.

An elite sniper or power forward.

A shutdown utility guy.

A shutdown pairing.

A pmd.

Excellent goaltending.

And enough depth to last a season and long run.

The Canucks fairly recently had all of this. Pretty sure they know what's needed.

[Canuck Surfer]

The '94 Canucks team was a blend of styles and skills. There really is no secret to what makes a team successful. It's not team emulation. It's not selecting players of one type. It's just a matter of getting the best players for the roles they're in.

But any contender needs:

2 top centers.

An elite sniper or power forward.

A shutdown utility guy.

A shutdown pairing.

A pmd.

Excellent goaltending.

And enough depth to last a season and long run.

The Canucks fairly recently had all of this. Pretty sure they know what's needed.

Yes! Securing the best player based on opportunity.

And / or crafting roles that suit them. Sorta like using Hodgson different than we used Malhotra. Prob not a popular example, but you get the point? Or along TO's comparison, we certainly used 2C Ronning different than we used 2C Kesler.

[surtur]

we need not model after the hockey's Big Bad Bruins or the blackened Hawks but the basketballs Globetrotters.

we will win every single game for the next 20 years.

please tell me where my logic fails..

[amitriptyline]

The team we had in 2010 was awesome, it just needed a little more size/grit, and some youth injection. If we could get back to something like that again with a little more size, youth and toughness, and a more competitive team culture with more "character" type players, it would be a good way to go.